Infection of Chaos
by Cluny the Warlord 1992
Summary: The story will now be a three way xover Pokemon, Naruto, and Xenosaga thank you for your time. Don't miss the battle between Ash and T-elos in Chapter 17, The Ultimate Battle: Man vs Android: Part 3. Please R&R.
1. A New Kind of Shinobi

It was a sunny morning in the Hidden Leaf Village and Naruto was up on the roof of his home practicing. He was just getting up to go back in for lunch when he felt the hairs on the back of his neck stand on end. He ducked just in time to see a bolt of lightning shot over his head. He leapt to his feet and looked down to see a yellow rabbit like creature with brown stripes on its back and lightning bolt tail walking down the street. "Hm, maybe this rabbit belongs to somebody." Naruto said to himself. "I'd better grab him and take him to Lord Ho kage." With that he jumped down and grabbed the creature. He chuckled and said "Gotcha."

"Pikachuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuuu." The creature shouted as a bolt of pure electricity blasted Naruto back first into a building.

Naruto slowly got up brown with burn marks from the shock. When suddenly a voice from behind Naruto asked "Hey buddy what's the idea of trying to steal my pikachu?"

Naruto looked around and asked, "What? Who said that?"

"I did." said the voice.

Naruto slowly turned around and grabbed a kunai knife and ran at where the voice was coming from. It turned out to be a boy the same age as Naruto but with black hair, a baseball cap with a green arch and a green dot underneath, a black t-shirt covered by a blue and white vest, a pair of blue jeans, and shoes. Naruto stopped a few feet away from the strangely dressed boy and asked, "Hey you look a little bit familiar. What's your name kid?"

The boy looked at Naruto and said, "My name is Ash Ketchum from Pallet Town." Naruto was shocked to find out that one of the best trainers in the Kanto, Joto, and, most recently, the Hoen region was standing right in front of him. "What's your name kid?"

"My name's Naruto Uzumaki, the next Ho Kage of the Village Hidden in the Leaves. Believe it." Naruto did his pose and tried to impress Ash.

Unfortunately for Naruto, Ash was unimpressed and said, "Not with that attitude Nari."

This made Naruto very angry. "What did you call me punk?"

"I called you Nari. You got a problem with that Nari?"

"Yes I do Pokefreak."

"That's it Pikachu, thunder!" Suddenly, a large bolt of lightning shot from pikachu's cheeks, and zapped Naruto sending him flying back first into a wall.

Naruto came up to his feet but he stared coldly at Ash and growled, "Your gonna pay for that." He got down like a dog on all fours and ran at him.

_All right I think that it's time to break out the heavy firepower. _He reached for a pokeball grabbed it pressed the enlargment button and threw it. When it hit the ground, it opened and shot out a blinding white light and a lizard like creature appeared and Ash shouted, "Skeptile use bullet seed to stun Naruto." Skeptile shot several glowing seeds at Naruto, who tripped over his own feet because of the illusion caused by the flying glowing spheres.

When Naruto got up he looked like he had just gotten up from taking a nap. "Ugh. What the heck just happened? What did I miss?"

"You just missed yourself being made a bigger oaf than you are Naruto." Naruto looked behind him to see Sasuke Uchiha.

"You got beat by someone who's not even a ninja. You are so stupid Naruto." The next voice was Sakura Haruno. When she turned to get a good look at Ash, she felt weak in the knees. "I hope that Naruto didn't hurt you."

Ash just dusted himself off and said, "Nah I don't think that Nari got close enough to even scratch me."

"Will you stop calling me that? For peat's sake, what's a ninja got to do to get some respect around here?"

Ash extended his hand and said, "Need a hand?" Naruto grabbed his hand and Ash helped him up only to punch him back onto the ground, "That was for calling me Pokefreak."

"Whoa he's intense," said Sakura, "here Naruto I'll help you up. No tricks." She helped him up and Naruto braced himself thinking Sakura wound beat him to a pulp but he looked at her and saw that he was safe.

Sasuke was starting to like Ash and think that if he kept annoying Naruto and not him he would be free from the little dunce. "So who are you?"

"The names Ash Ketchum from Pallet Town," Ash said with a look of curiosity on his face, "hey aren't you Sasuke Uchiha, one of the last remaining members of the great Uchiha clan that was wiped out except for your brother Itachi and you. I heard that Itachi was the one who destroyed the clan."

"Unfortunately your right." Sasuke said clenching his fists. He grabbed Ash by the collar of his shirt and lifted him into the air and said "Chidori."

At that moment three claw marks came out of his right eye and engulfed his body. Then ultraviolet blue chakra claws formed around his hands and a glow in the shape of dragon wings formed behind his back. Chakra talons formed around his feet and the curse mark glowed like the chakra around his body. His eyes lit up and glowed as he grabbed Sasuke and threw him into a building twenty yards away. Then he went from a possessed boy to his normal self.

"Whoa," Said Sakura "I think we'd better get Sasuke to the hospital and take Ash to see Lord Ho Kage.


	2. The Newest Ninja of Squad 7

Sakura and Naruto were heading to the office of Tsunade the Fifth Ho Kage, the still woozy Ash Ketchum between them with Pikachu perched loyally on his shoulder. At this time they were entering the door when Konohamaru the grandson of the Third Ho Kage jumped out at them. "Gotcha boss."

"Konohamaru wait!" Naruto shouted, but he was too late. The young energetic ninja student punched Naruto in the face sending him flying backwards onto the ground.

Ash had regained consciousness by now and took out one of his pokeballs. He threw it and Sceptile came out in time to stop Konohamaru from continuing his attack on Naruto. Konohamaru turned around to see Ash getting ready to send out Pikachu when the young ninja gazed in awe. "Hey who are you?"

"Well Konohamaru," Naruto said dusting himself off, "that is Ash Ketchum from Pallet Town."

"Oh sure," Konohamaru scoffed, "if he's the real Ash Ketchum, then why isn't he at the Battle Frontier?"

"There's a funny story behind that," Ash said, "I'm still technically in the Battle Frontier, but I came here to learn how to perfect my pokemon's skills."

"Oh that makes perfect sense."

"Pika, pika."

"Wow it really is you. You have the Pikachu and everything."

Just then a large metallic claw swooped in out of nowhere and grabbed Pikachu. Ash turned to try to grab Pikachu but he missed. "Pikachu!"

Three figures came out of a large machine chanting a motto. Naruto started creating hand signs for his best technique. He put his final sign in the sequence and shouted, "Shadow Clone Jutsu!" Then a solidified replica of Naruto appeared beside Naruto and started building up energy in Naruto's hand. The blonde haired nuisance shouted, "Rasengan." The clone spun him and threw him at the machine.

The energy sphere pierced the arm of the machine setting Pikachu free from its grip. Pikachu landed safely in Ashes arms. A girl with red hair shouted at Naruto, "Hey no fair."

A boy with blue hair backed up the girls comment, "Yes, we stole it fair and square."

A catlike creature added himself to the complaint, "And we didn't get to finish the motto."

"Well you should have seen this coming to you." The trio turned to see a white haired man with a headband over his left eye. He wore a green vest and was reading a book entitled Make out Paradise.

Naruto smiled and said, "It's about time you showed up Kakashi Sensei."

Ash stood there, mouth gape thinking, _so that's the famous Kakashi Hatake, the copycat ninja._

"Hello Naruto," Kakashi towards Ash and said, "so you must be the visitor I heard about, Ash Ketchum from Pallet Town. It is an honor to meet you in person."

Ash was thrilled by the fact that one of the most famous shinobi in the world actually knew who he was. The three villains reached for their pokeballs only to have them taken by the masked ninja. He looked up from his book and said why don't you just surrender before you make yourselves look even more idiotic than you already are."

The three tried to jump off of the machine to escape only for Sasuke to cut them off. He stared coldly at them and said, "You had better give up or I will break you morons in half. Got it?"

"Got it." But they grabbed a smoke bomb and threw it at the ground so that the two shinobi couldn't see them get away.

They had not gotten far when they ran right into the most feared sinister vile ninja from the Sand Village. The look in his eyes caused them to stop in their tracks. "You had better not even think of escaping me."

Out of nowhere, a blonde girl and a boy in a black robe with red makeup on his face landed on either side of the boy and said, "That's right, you tell him Gaara."

Ash was struck with fear. He had heard rumors of Gaara and the evil things he had done in his past. Just then, sand came out of the gourd on Gaara's back and started to engulf the trio of thieves. Ash shouted to protect them, "Hey you freak why don't you just go and throw yourself into a pit of spikes? Pikachu, use volt tackle."

Pikachu started running at Gaara and electricity engulfed its body. It threw itself at Gaara knocking him back twenty feet. The thieves crawled over to Ash and cowered behind him. "Oh thank you twerp."

"Thank you for saving us."

"What they said."

"Stop blubbering all over my jeans. I only saved you three so we could end this like we normally do." He jumped back a few yards and shouted, "Pikachu use thunder."

Pikachu unleashed a massive blast of electricity at them sending them flying and screaming, "Looks like Team Rockets blasting off again." They disappeared over the horizon for the moment.

Ash turned around to see Gaara who spoke to him angrily, "Why did you do a stupid thing like that? I could have finished those three off for good."

"Me and them kind of share a relationship. They try to steal Pikachu, I stop them, they fight me for Pikachu, I win, and I send them flying off to who knows where. The slightest offset will destroy the process."

"Oh that is just the most idiotic thing I've heard. Right Temari?" Asked the boy in the robes.

"Yeah, you're absolutely right Kankuro." Temari replied. "Besides they will be back for your Pikachu."

"Yeah I know."

"Well what if they really do steal Pikachu."

"Are you kidding, did you see the lousy attempt they made to escape? If they really are going to finally steal Pikachu, I don't see it happening any time in the near future." Ash's stomach started to growl. "Sorry, I never really ate breakfast this morning. Is there a good place to eat around here?"

"Well there is a place that serves some good ramen a few blocks away from here."

"Really, lead the way Naruto I'm so hungry I could eat just about anything."

"Well you will love the ramen they serve in the village."

---

Later at the ramen shop, Ash was surprised when he tasted the noodles he guzzled the entire bowl and asked for another. "Man this is the best stuff I ever ate."

"Wow he's so cute." Said a voice coming from behind Ash.

"Uh can I help you?" Ash said when he turned around.

"Well you could be my boyfriend," Said a blonde girl with a long ponytail in a purple kimono, "what do you say?"

"Ino take your eyes off my boyfriend." Sakura said clenching her fists.

"What the heck are you jabbering on about, because I have absolutely no time to think about girls? I have to go back to the Battle Frontier soon."

"Anyways. Ash how does you like your ramen?"

"Not bad but I know what will make it even hotter." He unzipped a pocket on his backpack and started rummaging through it, "Let's see, I know I put that thing in here somewhere. Ah here it is." He pulled out a red spiked berry and soaked it in the new bowl of ramen. "This should spice it up a little bit." He picked up a huge clot of noodles and slurped it up into his mouth. "Wow that pokeblock berry really helped to spice this ramen up."

"Hey let me taste that."

Ash stopped Naruto before the berry touched his lips, "Naruto I wouldn't do that if I were you."

"Why not?"

"Well I ate one of those berries in the Hoenn Region a few months back and lets just say that my lips were never the same again, That is until I got in the way of my Snorunt's ice beam." Ash looked over to Temari and thought, _wow she is so lovely._

"What are you staring at?"

"Oh, uh nothing, nothing at all." He turned away and started to blush.

"Hey Ash," Kakashi said, "How would you like to be part of squad seven. In the time you are here you can train with us and your pokemon at the same time."

"All right I don't see why not."


	3. The Dark Secret of the Hidden Shadow

Ash had just finished his bowl of ramen and was going with Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura, and Kakashi to find a spot to train when out of nowhere a freaky looking ninja in a green one piece jump suit, red belt, and big bushy eyebrows appeared in front of him. "Hmm," He said looking Ash over, "you do not look like the kind boy who could knock out Gaara of the Desert without batting an eyelash. You are the stupidest looking thing I've ever seen."

Ash was never one to be harshly intimidated so he let his thoughts run free like when he used to be around his old rival Gary Oak, "Ever looked in the mirror lately wurmple brow?"

Naruto couldn't help but throw back his head and laugh, "Wurmple brow, ha, ha, ha. Man that was hilarious."

"You do not insult me like that. No one insults Rock Lee."

"What's to make fun of? With those giant wurmple on your head you should be in the circus. I can see it now introducing Wurmple Brow Lee."

That last insult made Lee's blood boil, "That is it I'll show you."

"Pikachu use the strongest Thunder shock you can before this weirdo makes an even bigger moron of himself."

A powerful bolt of electricity shot out pikachu's cheeks a zapped Lee into temporary paralysis. "Wow I guess that I underestimated you." Lee said after he got up. "I was foolish to insult you like that."

"Don't worry I've been insulted in my fair share of time in the past. It's all right."

"Hey Lee it looks like you need to fix your hair a little you look more ridiculous than usual." Said a voice on the level of an apartment on the floor above him.

"Neji why must you insult me more than everyone else in the village?"

"It's my job I guess." Neji replied.

_So that's Neji Hyuga,_ Ash thought, _he just popped out of nowhere. I wonder if he noticed why Lee got that bad hairdo?_

"Wow hey cutie you want to dance?" Ash turned around to see a girl a little older than him staring into his eyes. "My name's Tenten, what's yours?"

"Um… my name is Ash Ketchum, nice to make your acquaintance."

"Wow, even the sound of your name is as cute as you are."

"Look I've already said this to two girls in this village and you'll make number three, I have to get back to the Battle Frontier soon, and I don't have any stinkin' time to think about any stupid girls. Got it?"

"All you had to say was 'I don't want a girlfriend right now that would have been okay."

Neji thought it might be a good idea to take a peak at Ashes chakra, so he used his Byakugan, the Kekkai Genkai of the Hyuga clan to analyze him. But when he looked at him, saw no trace of Ashes circulatory system. _I don't get it, _He thought, _the only clan of shinobi who were ever able to resist the power of the Byakugan was the ninjas of the Village Hidden in the Shadows. But that is impossible they all disappeared during the struggle between the Land of Fire and Lightning. It might have been possible for some of them to escape that conflict before they were drafted into it._

At that moment, Kakashi looked at Ash strangely, _I think I might as well observe this one he seems familiar in a way. I can't quite put my finger on it but his chakra seems to be like that of Naruto, like there's a demon inside of him. His eyes resemble that of the Hidden Shadow Village. But the last known traces of those ninjas were wiped out thirty years ago during the war with the Land of Lightning. Could it be possible that he is the descendent of a surviving member of the Village Hidden in the Shadows? I'll have to look into this._

---

Ash was selected to find a spot to train that would appeal to his accommodations, so he picked the biggest clearing in the forest, it had a lake for practice on water, trees for endurance cliffs, and plenty of room. Naruto couldn't help leaping for joy, "Ha, ha alright, go Ash, this is the best training sight anyone's picked."

"Thanks, I just thought all of you would want to train with plenty of space." Ash grabbed all of the pokeballs on his belt and shouted, " Come on out everyone, let's start training."

Five blinding flashes exploded in front of Kakashi. He was surprised to see how many pokemon from the Hoenn Region he had on him. "Well, it looks like Ash has just gotten rid of finding something for us to practice with."

"Oh I'm not done just yet."

"How so?"

"I made a call to Liza at the Charicific Valley and I should be expecting an appearance from a powerful friend of mine in three, two, one." As if on cue, a dark silhouette appeared in front of the sun. "Shinobi of the Leaf Village, I give you Charizard."

Before Charizard landed, he used flamethrower and scorched Ash. "Hah, that's a nice look for you Ash, Early Briquette."

Ask looked up at the dragon-like pokemon and asked, "Charizard do me a favor and use dragon rage on Naruto to shut him up."

A sphere of white and orange light shot out of Charizard's mouth straight at Naruto and blasted him back ten feet. Sakura couldn't help but burst out laughing. "Naruto you look so ridiculous. You should see the look on your face."

Sasuke just chuckled, "Yeah, you look like such a loser."

"All right, everyone enough fooling around let's get down to training. Ash I think that you should train with your pokemon like you always do."

"Sure that's fine with me. Come on guys lets get started." _All right I'm starting to get a little suspicious about these guys. Better not let them know about my suspicions._ "Swellow, Glalie let's start with you two."

"Glalie."

"Swellow"

"Glalie, ice beam, Swellow dive into it with aerial ace and follow it up with wing attack." When the combination was finished Naruto's jaw dropped open in amazement. "Good job guys. Charizard you and Donphan you're up next"

"Chari"

"Donpha"

"Charizard, fire blast, Donphan, roll out and follow up with double edge. Charizard use steel wing, Donphan use tackle." The combination was finished with a bang. Sasuke's jaw dropped with shock.

"Impressive, very impressive you might be just the person for our squad. With all of your strategies, and combinations the Sound Ninja won't stand a chance, of course I couldn't expect anything less from a descendent of the shinobi from the Village Hidden in the Shadows."

"What? I am not the descendent of a ninja."

"Ash there are a lot of things that you don't know about."

"Like what exactly?"

"Like your clan's Kekkai Genkai, the ability to control the shadows, of the Shadow Puppet Jutsu."

"What do you mean by Shadow Puppet Jutsu?"

"That is a technique that allows you to conjure up a monster from the shadows to attack your enemies. The technique can be learned at any rank including ninja academy student."

"And the Kekkai Genkai?"

"The Eyes of Darkness, it is the base trait that gave birth to both the Sharingan and the Byakugan. It allows the user the ability to both see through Ninjutsu, Genjutsu, and Taijutsu, but it has the same characteristics as the Byakugan. The user can literally see his or her enemy's circulatory system."

"But what about the mark on my eye?" He asked pointing at his right eye. "What does this have to do with this?"

"Hmm that is the mark of the Deonecros. A shape shifting shadow creature with a nasty attitude, but fortunately, unlike the curse mark on Sasuke's neck it is very easy to control."

"So how did I get this Deonecros inside of me?"

"The Deonecros is an infection that only occurs once every thousand years or so."

"So I'm the one who got it?"

"I'm afraid so."

"Great so it'll try to break out and destroy everyone?" Ash said sarcastically.

"No, I said it could be controlled very easily."

"So it's loyal to whoever it infected?"

"You've got it."

"Wow. But why couldn't I control it when I attacked Sasuke?"

"It takes just two tries to control it."

Ash understood this and decided to accept the creature inside of him.


	4. Shukaku's Strength Deminishes

That night, Ash couldn't sleep even though he was physically tired. He decided to go out for a walk to try to clear his head. He walked out into the full-moon lit night. He was half way down the street, when he felt another presence, _is this the Deonecros?_ He thought. _No, this not from inside of me I can feel the urge of bloodlust. Naruto said that Gaara had a demon inside of him that caused him to go crazy._

He had spent most of the day practicing his Kekkai Genkai and he decided to give it a test run. His eyes turned a deep purple with three white commas along the black rings in his irises. The veins on the side of his face popped out and he looked through the building and low and behold there standing in the shadow of the building was Gaara. He saw the look in Gaara's eyes. The hairs on Ash's neck started to bristle. He tapped into the Deonecros' power and the shadow control. The shadow from the building on the other side came and acted like the sand in Gaara's gourd and wrapped around Ash's arms and his head. He was amused at how easily he could control himself in state even though he looked a lot like Gaara when the Shukaku had taken over him.

Ash melded in with the shadows on the side of the building where the shadow around his upper body had originated. He slinked up behind Gaara and the shadows started to wrap around Gaara's shadow and immobilized him. Gaara tried to move his sand to protect himself, but he couldn't even move. He turned around and saw a half-human creature standing in the shadows with a look on its face that was somewhat familiar. "Do I know you from somewhere?"

The voice that made the reply was unexpected. "Nice to see your ugly face again so soon Gorra."

"You're the boy who's little rat knocked me flat on my back earlier today."

"Do you have a problem with that?"

"No. But how can you be in that form without going crazy."

"Ask him yourself. He's standing right here in front of you."

"Alright let that thing tell how a runt like you can control it."

"All right you little worm. But I think that I heard your pathetic little question."

"Who are you?"

"My name is Deonecros."

"What?"

"You heard me human. If you have any questions about why the Shukaku isn't responding to your dire situation, I'll tell you why.

"Go ahead."

"It's because I'm draining all of its chakra."

"How are sucking out its chakra without making any physical contact with me."

"Who said I needed to be making physical contact with you. Look at your shadow and your question will be answered."

Gaara looked down and saw that Deo's shadow was somehow connected with him. "Explain this to me. Why are you able to latch on to my shadow and drain my chakra?"

"I'll show you why." He concentrated and pulled something out of Gaara's shadow. "Gaara meet Araag, your shadow. He his everything that you are and more."

"Hello Gaara. I must admit I never knew that you would look this ugly. But I'm sure you fight better than you look."

"Get this abomination out of my face."

Deonecros did just that. His arm morphed into a sword and he stabbed Araag in the chest and he disappeared into Gaara's shadow.

Unfortunately, Gaara felt the pain. "Gah, this pain why am I feeling this pain when my shadow took the hit?"

Deonecros chuckled and said, "When your shadow takes the hit even though you are not connected with it you take the damage that it takes."

"So you kill your opponent with out even touching it."

"Well what do you know, you're twice as smart as you look."

"Even though, I may not look that smart but I'm twice the genius that you'll ever be."

Suddenly Deonecros started to twitch "Ugh I need to get back into the shadows to recuperate from my experience out here. Even though Ash's chakra is never used when he uses the Eyes of Darkness, my chakra is drained when I take control of my host's body. All right Ash I need to rest."

"Oh my head. Ugh, did he explain everything to you."

"Yes he did. And by the way I saw you doing a summoning jutsu before the end of your training today. I want you to show me."

"You honestly want me to do that. I'll show you tomorrow when I'm well rested and awake. Oh and don't try to assassinate while I'm asleep because Charizard is asleep in front of my room, and Swellow and Noctowl are watching outside of my window."

"There goes my original plan."

"Well if you want to do that, you need to catch me. Transform" A cloud of smoke engulfed Ash as he morphed into a ghostly pokemon with a skull for a head. "Duskull (I'll see you tomorrow you weirdo)." And with that he disappeared back to his apartment and went back to sleep.


	5. Ash's Secret Revealed

The next morning, Ash got up fully rested got dressed and woke up all of his pokemon as he left to go get a bite for breakfast. He went to the ramen shop to see what they had to offer.

When he got there, he ordered his ramen and began to gorge on it so he could build his strength. When he finished he decided to order a special bowl for lunch, "I'll have a bowl off ramen with shrimp, beef, pork, and chicken. Oh and could you grind up this piece of tomato berry and add it in there."

"You got it kid. One custom bowl of ramen coming up."

"Here's an idea for the name. Ketchum's Special Dish."

"Say a nice name for a nice spicy bowl of ramen. Here you go that and all of the other bowls are on the house."

"See you later."

---

"All right Gorra come out I'm here."

"How did you know I was here?"

"Remember what I said last night?"

"Oh right your Kekkei Genkai. Now show me that summoning technique."

"All right I'll show you, Eyes of Darkness."

"Why are you using that?"

"I don't want to waste any chakra before my training with Kakashi Sensei. So I'm using my Kekkai Genkai to negate the Justus's extreme use of chakra. All right here goes nothing. Inu, I, Saru, Uma, Tori, Hitsuji Summoning Jutsu." A large amount of Japanese characters formed around Ash and a giant creature appeared under him.

"What do you want now?"

"I need a ride to get to where I summoned you yesterday."

Gaara tried to stop them. "Oh no you don't"

"Shadow Puppet Jutsu." Ash brought out Araag long enough to throw a kunai knife at his back.

Gaara winced in pain. "Don't, urgh, move."

"Hurry Rayquaza. Let's go before he fully recovers."

"Got it." The creature said as he flew away. "Why did you agree to show him the technique?"

"To try to pull a fast one on the idiot. Now step on it, I want to be there and train a little before the guys and Kakashi Sensei get there."

"Got it. We'll be there in no time."

---

The giant Rayquaza landed and disappeared where he'd been summoned the day before. Ash saw that his pokemon were there waiting for him to start training. "All right let's see if we can get some progress in before the others get here."

The training went on for an hour before Naruto, Sasuke, and Sakura arrived. "Hey guys how'd you sleep?"

"Pretty good actually." Said Naruto

"I couldn't stop dreaming about you Ash." Sakura giggled.

"I couldn't sleep. I was too busy trying to think of strategies to destroy my brother."

"What about you?"

"I could hardly sleep so I went out for a walk."

"That's dangerous you know, especially since the Shukaku goes berserk during the full moon."

"Not when you go for his shadow. He's weak when you expose Araag, his shadow."

"Wow. Now how exactly does that hurt him?"

"Well when you hurt a shadow when it's exposed you become weak against the attacks that it takes. When it goes into your shadow, you take the pain dealt to it."

"Well I can see that someone is telling a few good reasons to use the Shadow Puppet Jutsu on someone like Gaara."

"Well look who showed up a little late."

"I'm sorry but I took a wrong turn in my apartment while thinking up today's lesson."

"Oh sure you did. I caught a glimpse of you in front of the theatre billboard staring at an advertisement for the Make out Paradise Movie."

"What, ugh, I didn't even know you were there."

"My Kekkei Genkai was active."

"Enough about this," Naruto shouted, "let's get to training some time before I get any older."

"All right, let's start with kunai throwing." He pointed to four targets on four trees. "Now throw all of the kunai one person at a time and try to hit the bull's eye. Sasuke you go first." Sasuke threw the kunai knives and hit the bull's eye. "Excellent, Sakura you're next." Sakura had the same results as Sasuke. "Perfect. Ash, give it a try." Ash through the kunai and surprising hit a perfect score. "Amazing. Naruto it's your turn." When Naruto threw his kunai and a boy in a green shirt with a white collar a pair of tennis shoes and blue shorts with a pair of glasses and black hair fell out of the tree.

"Huh, ah, help." He screamed.

Ash knew who the boy was and sprang into action. "Hold on Max, I'm coming." He jumped in front of Max, pulled out a kunai knife and knocked away the knives as the came flying at him.

The boy had been cowering behind Ash through the whole ordeal. He looked out from behind his protector to see if he was safe. "Thanks." He looked up and a familiar face stared back at him.

"You all right Max?"

Max recognized the voice and knew who it was. "Ash is it really you?"

"You bet. And most of my pokemon are here to. Hey guys its Max."

The pokemon came over to welcome Ash's friend. "Hmph. Just because Ash has old friends to say hi to doesn't mean we're unimportant." He put both hands around his mouth and shouted, "Hey Ash, are you going to introduce us or do…"

"Keep your two piece jump suit on Nari, I'm getting to that." He turned and asked Max, "Are May and Brock around?"

"Yeah, they're back in the woods."

"Go get them. That way I can introduce them to the guys. Now go, Charizard you go with him." The two walked into the woods. "So Kakashi Sensei, I heard something about the tailed beasts, is Deonecros one?"

"Well, actually yes. In fact it's the reason for the existence. It has twenty tails, making it twenty thousand years old."

"Wow that's pretty amazing."

"Hey Ash, we're back."

Ash turned around to see a Max coming back with Charizard, a black teenager with brown spiked hair, a brown green sweater vest, and brown jeans, and a girl about Ash's age with brown hair, a red bandana with a white pokeball silhouette on the top, a pair of black shorts, a red t-shirt with a black ring under the collar, and a yellow belt with all of her pokemon training gear in it. "May, Brock, good to see you again after a week."

"Nice to see you too." May said.

"Yeah. One minute your asleep, and in the morning, you just leave looking for a new place to train and all you leave to tell us that you're gone is a note." Brock complained.

"You really should have told us about where you were going. And I thought that you went back to the Hoenn Region to try to train a new chance at winning the Hoenn League Competition." Max added.

"Sorry. I just…"

"Ash, I'm sick of you getting all of the attention here. Are you going to get to the introductions sometime today?" Naruto ranted. His hand quivered with anger as he pointed at Ash.

"Put a lid on it Nari, I'm getting to that."

"Stop calling me that you inexperienced nerd."

Ash grabbed Naruto's hand pulled him in close and punched him in the face. "Be patient stupid, or else I'll pound you until you're no more." He turned to his friends and introduced them to the shinobi. "Guys this is Sasuke Uchiha, Sakura Haruno, Kakashi Hatake, and Naruto Uzumaki, the loudmouth of the group. Shinobi of squad seven, this is May and her brother Max from Petalburg City and Brock the former gym leader of Pewter City."

"Nice to meet you."

"Hi."

"What's up?"

"Pleasure to meet you."

"Glad to know you. Believe it."

"Whatever."

"Hello."

"Nice to see that you guys can get along pretty nicely." His stomach started to growl. "Who's up for lunch? I'm starving."

"Did someone say hungry?" Brock asked. "Because I can fix some good food."

"I don't know." Naruto said shrugging.

""Naruto you've got nothing to worry about, Brock is one of the best cooks that I know. He will make your taste buds dance." He got close to Naruto's ear and whispered, "Besides, if you don't like his cooking, I have a warm bowl of ramen in my backpack that you can have."

"Well that's not a bad idea." Naruto said patting Ash on the back. "All right, if Brock's is as good as you say it is I'll try it. But if it isn't that bowl of ramen in your bag is mine."

---

The group sat on tree stumps and watched Brock work his magic. He made the most delicious looking food. Naruto's mouth started to water by just looking at it. "So Ash why did you come here?" Max asked.

"Well I thought that I could leave the Kanto Region and train somewhere that had benefits for all of my pokemon. That's when I thought about some of the stories I heard in Pallet town about the ninja in the Hidden Leaf Village. I heard that it wasn't too far from the Eastern Coast of Kanto, so I headed here. But I did have to stop and ask for directions periodically."

"So you came here to train with some of the best ninja that the world had to offer. Is that right?" Kakashi asked.

"Yeah. I was kind of thinking about that. I didn't expect to be part of a ninja team."

"Yeah considering Sakura, Ino, and Tenten are falling head over heels for you."

"Naruto, does your stomach hurt right now?"

"Well actually now that you mention it no."

Ash moved like lightning and let Naruto have it right in the stomach. "I bet it does now you little dweeb."

"I should have warned you Naruto," Max said, "Ash has a bit of an anger issue."

"I could have found that out earlier you know." Naruto said clenching his stomach. "You should have seen him throw Sasuke yesterday. I mean it really hurt Sasuke, but you should have seen the look on his face when that curse mark took over."

"What curse mark?" May asked.

"This one." Ash said as the marks extended from the edges of his eye.

"Doesn't that hurt?" Max asked.

"No. I have complete control over it. You need to see what my hereditary technique looks like." He blinked once and both of his eyes turned a dark shade of purple with three white commas around a white colored pupil. "This is just stage one. But I don't know how to get level two or three yet."

"You need to practice hard to unlock those two levels of the Eyes of Darkness. First you need to learn how to move inhumanly fast to unlock the Eyes of the Demon. Then you must become one with your inner demon in order to use the Eyes of Death. These techniques are similar to the Mangekyo Sharingan and the Tsukuyomi that Itachi Uchiha utilizes quite frequently."

"What are the Eyes of the Demon like?"

"You slow down time making your opponent vulnerable to any attack. The Eyes of Death makes your opponent go through three months of pain that is amazingly real. Using these two techniques at the same time can drive anyone including Itachi insane." Kakashi got a gleam in his eye.

"Let me guess, your going to make me train hard enough so I can learn those two techniques and wait for Itachi to come here looking for the Deonecros and instead drive him into a proverbial coma. Making him leave and or make him commit his own punishment."

"My point exactly."


	6. Itachi's Humiliating Defeat

After lunch Naruto was rubbing his stomach. "Man Ash you were right Brock does make the best food around."

"You see what did I tell you?" Ash pointed out. "Now Kakashi Sensei I need to unlock the Eyes of the Demon so I can show you how I can learn incredibly fast."

"All right Ash we'll begin training right now. Naruto, Sasuke, Sakura get up it's time to help Ash increase his movements."

"What," May protested, "Ash, are you cra…"

"May, I need to do this in case Itachi Uchiha comes to try to get that demon inside of me. If that happens I might die."

"Ash the thing is, I'm your friend and I care about you. If you die I don't know what I'd do."

"May don't worry your friend is in good hands." Kakashi said.

"Besides my pokemon are my training equipment, no way I'll get hurt training. I mean it's not like they'll go berserk and try to kill me."

"Yeah but Charizard might be a problem. He scorches him every time he…" Max said before he was cut off.

"The others already know that shorty."

"Come on Max, May, let's help out Ash with his training." Brock said looking the field over.

_Well he'd better learn that second level Kekkei Genkai soon,_ Sasuke thought to him, _because I have a feeling that he'll need it before the sunsets, a really bad feeling._

---

Outside of the gate, mist covered the path leading to the gate to the village. Two figures in black kimonos with red cloud shaped designs were walking to the gate. They were both wearing hats with bells on the side corners. The tallest of the pair was carrying a sword wrapped in mummy like bandages. "Well Itachi we're here the village where all of the fools dwell."

Itachi Uchiha, the shorter of the two looked at his accomplice and said. "Yes Kisame it's been along time since I last entered through these gates. And I'm back for the same reasons this time. Sealing the Kyuubi and testing my brother's Kekkei Genkai."

The two scaled the wall and infiltrated the village. Kisame shuddered with fear; "I sense that there is more than one demon in the village this time."

"You feel it to huh?" Itachi said with a chill racing down his spine. "I sense three demons in this village. The Kyuubi and two others, one weakling, and one with eleven times the power than that of the Kyuubi, if we seal both of them, master Sasori will be pleased." He lost the detection of one the demon's chakra. "Wait, the third one's vanished from my senses."

"But that's impossible." Kisame said, "Only one clan of ninja has managed to be able to hide their chakra."

"The Hidden Shadow village I know. But they died out thirty years ago. If there is a Hidden Shadow ninja in the village we might have to kill him." Itachi said putting his hand on the hilt of his katana.

---

Mean while the training ground was being entrenched by Ash's increasing speed. He learned from Kakashi's expertise that the only way to gain speed is to slow down moving objects in your mind. "Ash you might want to experience danger first hand to increase your own adrenaline flow." Kakashi remarked.

"What do you mean sensei?" Ash asked.

"That's a question with an easy answer. Fear enhances the body's senses and abilities by increasing the adrenaline flow in your body." He turned to Naruto, "Naruto show Ash what the Kyuubi can do."

"Sensei," Naruto complained, "are you sure that's such a good idea?"

"Naruto," Kakashi said with a serious attitude, "trust me on this one. I want you to use the Kyuubi's chakra and attack Ash to increase his adrenaline flow. He'll be able to increase his natural speed."

"All right sensei," Naruto said depressed, "here goes nothing." He concentrated hard and red chakra engulfed his body in the shape of a three-tailed fox. Naruto's whisker marks on the side of face got darker and bigger, his eyes turned red and sharp like an animal, his nails changed until they looked like claws, and his teeth became fang-like and he started to growl. "Bring it on." Naruto snarled.

Ash got into a rugged fighting stance and activated his Eyes of Darkness and said, "Let's go." Naruto ran at Ash on all fours again and Ash watched him carefully.

Kakashi signaled Naruto to stop. "Ash I want you to wear these ankle weights and wrist weights during this training exercise." He picked up a pair of fifty pound weights for the wrists and ankles. "And I also want you to wear these knee weights, arm weights, and this weighted jacket." He said as he handed Ash the other fifty pound weights and jacket.

Ash was having a little trouble moving. "Sensei," He complained as he struggled to move, "these weights are only slowing me down."

Kakashi was obviously paying no attention to Ash's petty complaints and idly replied, "Don't worry you'll get used to them as the training progresses." He turned to Naruto, "You may continue your senseless rampage Naruto."

Naruto continued his halted charge. Ash was having a hard time trying to move out of the way but Naruto rammed into him sending Ash flying backward. _Note to self_, Ash thought,_ use weights to pound the heck out of Naruto and Kakashi Sensei when I get back up. _He struggled hard to get onto his feet, "If I can get up." He said to himself.

He readied himself for another charge from Naruto who ran at him. Ash read Naruto's movement. He caught the punch and punched Naruto in the face. When Naruto regrouped to attack again, Ash stomped on his back sending Naruto onto his stomach. When Naruto picked himself up, Ash raised his fist and let it drop onto the top of Naruto's head and kicked him on the chin. Kakashi was right; Ash was getting used to wearing the weights and didn't mind the extra two hundred fifty pounds of extra weight. He flailed at Naruto sending the blonde haired idiot into defense to try to absorb most of the pain that followed the continuing barrage of punches. Ash was moving fifteen times faster than normal and was wondering if he was going to need the extra two hundred fifty pounds all of the time. But he felt the power of his Kekkei Genkai begin to increase. The comma shapes in his eyes connected with the center of his eyes, dark rings appeared around his eyes, and he began to pound the stuffing out of Naruto. Before Kakashi began to stop the training, Ash felt his inner self fuse with him and the third level of his Kekkei Genkai was unlocked.

He heard a rustling in the bushes. He turned in the direction the noise originated and darted toward the spot. A man in a black kimono appeared in front of him and attempted to stop him. But his attempts were pointless; Ash slammed into him and knocked him onto his back. He glanced behind him and saw another one heading toward Naruto with a large sword about to slice him in half. Ash moved like lightning and bashed him in the side of the face and sent him flying into a tree. Kakashi lifted the part of his headband that covered the left side of his face to reveal his transplanted Sharingan eye that originally belonged to his former teammate Obito Uchiha, Sasuke's father who was killed by his brother Itachi during the mysterious attack on the Uchiha Clan. "All right you two surrender or I'll sick my new student on you."

"Oh, please Kakashi," The shorter of the two said, "This kid doesn't look like he can kill a fly."

"Leave my Sensei alone," Ash said with a feeling of rage in his voice, "Itachi Uchiha."

"Well," Itachi said removing his hat, "it looks like my name is known beyond the Village Gates. I have a question for you."

"And I have and answer for you freak." Ash replied angrily.

"Why do you have a demon inside of you that you seek to assist you?" Itachi asked.

"I have it inside of me to help me defeat monsters like you. Is that a good enough answer you, you crazed killer? Or do I have to knock more sense into you to make sure that your brain's working correctly?"

"That's a good enough answer." Itachi said as he drew his katana. "Now prepare yourself for the fight of your life." He moved into striking position, launched himself at Ash and shouted, "Prepare to die, boy."

The curse mark on the side of Ash's face engulfed his body. Ash didn't struggle; because he was actually expecting the Deonecros to kick in show Itachi what his powers were capable of. "Bring it on, old man." He roared angrily. "Show me what you're made of. I can take you on with one hand tied behind my back." He got on all fours and began to change. Shadows covered the right side of his body making him look like Shukaku Gaara again. But the shadows turned sleek and less wind resistant. He lunged at Itachi with blinding speed. His claws narrowly sliced Itachi in half.

He landed dragging his claws in the ground stopping him before he hit the tree behind him. He launched himself at Itachi and built up energy in his left hand. Itachi ran at him and swung his sword at Ash who countered by blasting him with the chakra in his hand. The counter move sent Itachi flying backward onto the ground. "You may have the Mangekyo Sharingan," The demon said, "but I have the power to beat you into a bloody pulp. I can't wait until you give up. If you try to seal me away, you'll end up quickening your own demise." Kisame swung his sword and was ready to shave the demon, but the Deonecros' next words shook Kisame to his core. "Go ahead fish face, attack me, it won't matter anyway. I'll just switch places with your idiotic partner. If you switch places with him, I'll crush you in his place and devour him later."

Kisame was in no position to put his own life in danger. He put his sword away and backed away, only to bump into Gaara. Sand wrapped itself around Kisame's leg and tripped him. Gaara turned to Ash; "You think that that little prank you pulled would send me back to the Land of Wind? Well you had better think again, because you are not going anywhere. When I finish them off, you're next."

"How about this, boy?" Deonecros said with a grin on his face. "We'll take both of them on and call a truce between the two of us."

"All right," Gaara said unsurely, "but you'll fight along side of me in full human sized form."

"So you have asked, so shall it be." The shadows fully engulfed Ash's body and everyone watched in awe, as his full demon form was complete.

_This boy_, Gaara thought, _what is he? He can control his demon side quite sufficiently. He's able to fight without losing control of his power._

"Well, Gaara" The demon said looking at him, "are you going to stand there like an idiot, or are you going to fight like you said you would?"

"I choose to fight." Gaara said, turning toward Kisame and Itachi. "Let's go." The duo lunged at Itachi and Kisame and began to fight like there was no tomorrow.

They scratched, clawed, ripped, bit, punched, kicked, butted, and roared at their foes, who tried to fight back. But they were no match, "Great," Itachi said sarcastically, "we're losing to a couple of crazed children."

"Not for long," Kisame inquired, "They're going to feel the power of the Akatsuki."

He began performing hand seals to unleash his organization's signature technique. Before he could finish, the Deonecros grabbed him by the neck and shouted, "Eyes of the Demon." Kisame froze as he began to think he was hallucinating. But Ash had another trick up his sleeve, he took control long enough to duplicate himself and execute the Shadow Puppet Jutsu on Itachi, disabling him.

"Like I said before, old man, I can take you on. Now I'll show you what a descendent of the Hidden Shadow Ninja can do when you get them angry enough to kill you. Eyes of Death." Itachi froze in terror as he began to be trapped in an intense piece of Genjutsu. He woke up on a wooden cross with Ash standing in front of him with his kunai, which he had transformed into a sword like the one katana on Itachi's hip. "For the next three months you'll feel pain like you have never dreamed of." He jabbed the sword into Itachi's side. Itachi screamed in pain and fell unconscious. He woke up fully healed but he could still feel the sword being driven into his side. Ash was still standing in front of him only now there was two of him and each of them and they both jabbed their swords into Itachi knocking him unconscious for a second time. This continued for what felt like eighty-six days. When Itachi woke up for the ninety-first time, ninety-one replicas of the same Ash Ketchum surrounded him. "Ninety days, twenty-three hours, fifty-nine minutes, fifty-nine seconds."

Itachi gasped, "Only one second left to go."

"Bingo, loser." Ash said, as he and all of his replicas rammed their swords into every inch of his front torso. Itachi screamed because of the excruciating pain that he felt from the swords. When it was all over, Itachi collapsed still screaming in pain that was almost fatal.

"Itachi what happened?" Kisame asked. "One second you were okay, and the next you're screaming in pain."

"Kisame," Itachi groaned, "let's get out of here. I'm already hurt beyond belief."

Ash stopped right in front of Kisame, "You aren't going any where fish boy." His eyes flared up two purple irises, the whites of his eyes turned flame red, and the white commas connected in the center and the points of the commas went outside the irises Itachi used the last of his strength to intercept the attack but ended up going through a three year ordeal of the same three month pain endurance that Ash used earlier.

"Itachi what happened?" Kisame asked.

"I think I just went through a stronger version of the Tsukuyomi. How did you learn that?" Itachi asked.

"He learned that technique just a few minutes ago." Kakashi said.

"How could he learn a technique like that so fast?" Kisame asked in order to find out about the boy's past.

"I read that the only one who avoid being involved in the war between the Land of Lightning and the Land of Fire, the Kage (the leader of a ninja country). Before the war broke out, the Kage was ordered by his elite team of assassins to leave before the village was involved in the war. He left his most loyal guardsman to take his place as leader of the village. He got involved when he heard that his friend Lord Sarutobi (the Third Ho Kage) was in danger of being assassinated, and gathered up the strongest ninja in the Shadow Village's army. He couldn't bear to see his friend gone, so rushed to his aid and posed as an alias as the ANBU black ops from the Leaf Village." Kakashi replied. "It was the Kage's wish to not get involved in any conflict with ninja inhabited countries. Sadly, it didn't go through so well."

"That doesn't explain why he can summon creatures. When I started a summoning technique I had to sign a contract in blood. Why does Ash have to just do a few hand signs to summon a dragon, When I had to sign a contract _and_ do the hand signs to summon a bunch of toads." Naruto complained.

"That must have hurt." Max said. "Signing a contract with your own blood sounds pretty painful."

"I know," May agreed, "I don't know how you could put up with that."

"I wouldn't have been able to do that." Brock chimed in.

"Ash can summon creatures without signing any contracts, because his father, the Kage wanted his own son to be protected in times of great peril" Kakashi said. "He knew his son would figure out his birth right sooner or later so he made a deal the creatures he signed the contracts with to protect his son when he figured out how to summon them."

"Well he certainly knows how to use them to try to get the upper hand against me." Gaara added.

"We'll be back to seal the demon another day, boy." Itachi said. "Mark my words."

"I'll take you up on that bet loser." Ash remarked. "And remember, my name's Ash Ketchum from Pallet Town. If you think that you can beat me, you're dead wrong. If try to do anything, scratch that, if anyone tries to do anything to beat me in your wacko organization, you'll be sorry that you ever met me. Capiche?"

"Got it." Itachi said weakly. "I'll mention it to…" Ash cut him off.

"If you try to seal the Deonecros, you're dead. You and any of your comrades who come to try to seal him." Ash threatened.

Itachi felt his knees start to shake with fear from the cold threat. "I'll warn Sasori about that."

Itachi and Kisame walked away wondering about how their leader would take the news when they told him that they failed their mission after they were beaten by a kid.


	7. New Friends, Reborn Enemies

**Okay, my original plan to have a Pokemon Naruto XOVER has just found a way to get a few more readers. Instead of doing a Naruto Pokemon XOVER I'll be doing a Naruto Pokemon Xenosaga, the popular videogame that has some biblical references to it's main story line, XOVER. I hope you'll like the story. When you're done reading, please R&R.**

---

It was the year T.C. 4769. A war had been ended two years before, but a number of antagonists wanted to restart the war. A group of eight people headed towards a time warp gate that normally stayed open until the people who used it returned. They planned on this being the last time of its use. Their plan was going perfectly, except for the fact that they were being pursued. Their pursuer was an android assassin, A.S.H. X100, who had been put into the bingo book as a rogue killer for all who were stupid to try to take him on. Three people were behind the five others with guns blazing trying to cut him back, but to no avail.

One of them, a female android around eighteen with electric blue hair, pale skin and black, white, and silver clothes that looked older in order for her to blend in with the time that they were going to, turned to her comrades and said, "Shion, I do not think that we will be able to hold the enemy back for much longer."

Another one, also a female around eighteen with silver hair, darker skin, and black and purple clothes like the other female android who had once been on the side of evil turned and said, "Shion, I think that KOS-MOS is right, he's starting to move towards our position. Hurry up a little so we can escape through the portal and see if we can stop this from taking place."

A woman with brown hair and clothes like those a person who lived in the suburbs would wear, turned to them and said, "T-elos, KOS-MOS, Jr. try to keep him back a little bit longer, I'm almost finished."

A young android with pale skin, pink hair, and yellow eyes, wearing a red and pink dress with a black ribbon in her hair grabbed a bow that she called LEGOLAS, and began firing with pinpoint accuracy only missing by a hairs width each time.

"Hey MOMO, nice shots." Said Jr., "But you need to be a little bit more accurate."

"I'm trying to do the best I can Jr." MOMO said, "Be a little more grateful."

"Sorry, it's just that I can't stand the fact that this will be our last days in this time period." He continued to fire his two guns at the android assassin, who seemed to show no sign of giving up.

T-elos, as mentioned before, had been on the side of a villain named Testament. She'd once been the body of a woman named Mary Magdalene, KOS-MOS, was once the embodiment of Mary's will. But KOS-MOS had destroyed T-elos once before, and Shion had rebuilt T-elos so that her abilities could be used for good instead of evil. And, she proved that she was now on the side of justice by helping them get to the portal.

Shion was finished with the time coordinates and turned to KOS-MOS, T-elos, and Jr. and shouted, "Alright, I've got the coordinates set, and the automatic self-destruct sequence has been engaged for the second that T-elos passes through the portal."

T-elos was bestowed with being the one who destroyed the time portal and the enemy. And as Shion ensured, the second that the android passed through the warp gate, it exploded taking A.S.H. X100 with it.

---

The crew passed backwards through time more than four thousand years, and came out right in the middle of a forest. They were found by a boy with hair the color of volcanic smoke and a baseball cap with a green semi-circle on top of a green dot in the middle of a black field with red bill wearing a black shirt under a blue and white vest. He was perched on a tree branch with a kunai in his left hand. "So which of the Shinobi nation are you from? You aren't from the Land of Fire. If you're from the Land of Hidden Sound, I'll have to deliver you to Lady Tsunade."

"We're sorry," Shion said apologetically, "we're new to this time, and we come from the year T.C. 4769. My name is Shion Uzuki; these are my friends T-elos, KOS-MOS, Jr., Ziggurat 8, Allen Ridgeley, Miyuki Itsumi and MOMO. Who are you?"

The boy got up and walked down the trunk of the tree. He got to the bottom and said, "My name is Ash Ketchum, and I'm a pokemon trainer from the town of Pallet. I'm here in the Land of Fire to train and get stronger before I return to the Battle Frontier and challenge the Battle Pyramid."

"Ash Ketchum," MOMO said, "that name is familiar. Wait I remember hearing that you were a pokemon trainer who cleared the Battle Frontier."

"What," Ash said in amazement, "you mean I cleared the Battle Frontier?"

"Mm-Hm." MOMO said as she blushed.

Ash noticed that the girl had a little bit of a crush on him by the way she was blushing. He thought to himself, _if she has a crush on me, I like her style. She's the only girl who hasn't gone crazy and started to kiss me, and stuff. I'll let her do what she thinks is the best._

Ash felt that T-elos was about to make an attempt to attack him so he said, "Don't even try to attack me." T-elos was surprised that he anticipated her move before she made it. "In case you haven't noticed, I'm no ordinary person." His eyes turned his gaze towards T-elos as his Kekkei Genkai went active. "You won't be able to make a move that I won't detect. So I suggest that you follow me to the village unless you want to be captured and taken to Orochimaru for interrogation." He turned and said, "Follow me, the village is only a few meters this way."

Shion and the others followed him. Ziggy held up the rear. When they got to the gate, Ash opened it wide enough for the travelers to enter. He turned to them and said, "Welcome to the Village Hidden in the Leaves. I hope you enjoy your stay here."

"Ash! Over here!" Ash turned to see that Sakura, Ino, and Tenten were waiting for him. They were waving their arms in the air as if to show Ash where they were.

"Great," He said sarcastically, "I had a feeling that they would be here. They're worse than a group of Rattata at a picnic."

"Hey who are those people?" Tenten asked.

"Come over here," Ash said, "and I'll introduce them to you."

"All right," Ino said with a groan, "Chouji, Shikamaru come out and I'll introduce you to Ash."

"Hey Shino, Kiba, Hinata," Sakura shouted over her shoulder, "You come out too. I'll introduce you."

Five people came out form their hiding places. One was a girl with lavender eyes and short cut black hair in a beige jacket. The others were boys one wearing a green colored t-shirt under a mesh vest, with his hair in a ponytail, one with red swirls on both of his cheeks and his hair in two buns on both sides of his head, one wearing a hoody with a dog with white and brown fur on his head, and one with black sunglasses in a button up shirt with a collar that covered his mouth gazed in amazement.

"Wow, look at him Akamaru," Kiba said with a grin on his face, "that's the famous Ash Ketchum of Pallet Town." The dog barked in awe as he looked at the boy with a rabbit-like creature with yellow fur, red cheeks, black tipped ears, brown stripes going across it's back, and a tail shaped like a lightning bolt sat perched on his shoulder. "He has the Pikachu and everything."

"Hah," Scoffed Chouji as he munched greedily on a bag of potato chips, "that still doesn't mean that he's the real deal."

"Mm, he certainly looks like the real deal." Hinata said shyly as her eyes looked away from him.

Shino just looked at him knowing that Chouji was wrong.

"Sheesh, what a drag," Shikamaru said looking away while massaging his right shoulder, "I say that he is the real McCoy."

"Yeah right," Chouji said still devouring the seemingly endless bag of chips.

"You want to start something fatso?" Ash yelled at him.

Chouji's temper heated up. "What did you call me?" He screamed dropping the bag of chips to the ground. "I'm not fat, I'm just a little chubby, okay. I'm just chubby."

Ash's fist flew into Chouji's forehead knocking the butterball back several feet. "Stop yelling in my face, you fat freak."

"Whoa," Shikamaru said to himself, "I didn't see him move. He's faster…"

"Than Rock Lee?" Ash asked rubbing his fist.

"Yeah," Shikamaru said scratching the back of his head.

"Well anyways," Ash said turning to the group he escorted from the woods as he introduced them. "Tis is Shion Uzuki, T-elos, KOS-MOS, Jr., Ziggurat 8, Allen Ridgeley, Miyuki Itsumi, and MOMO. They're from the year T.C. 4769. I think that they want to start living here in the village."

Sakura walked up to T-elos and looked her over from feet to head. She immediately knew that Ash was not lying when she saw the headpiece that T-elos was wearing. She looked KOS-MOS over and noticed that she had the same thing. "Wow they really are from the future."

"I told you so," Ash said. He huddled them all up into a group, "I think that MOMO likes me. I mean likes me, likes me."

"Whoa," Kiba said, "all right."

"Dude that's pretty awesome." Shikamaru grinned.

"I can see why." Chouji munched.

"Hm." Shino nodded.

"Arf." Barked Akamaru.

"Well," Hinata said softly, "I'm h-happy to hear that. C-congratulations."

"Well she does look like a perfect match for you." Tenten admitted.

"Cha!" Sakura yelled in jealousy, "I thought that you said that you weren't looking for a girlfriend."

"Yeah," Ino agreed, "you said that you didn't have time for girls."

The rage of Ino and Sakura's voices caused him to lose it. "I CHANGED MY MIND!" He roared in outrage as he dealt the two girls a blow to the face. He clenched his fists breathing heavily trying to recover from the explosion that he failed to contain. "If you have any other objections," He growled, "I don't care what you say. I won't have it."

Realizing that he had lost his temper in front of MOMO, Ash turned and ran over to the crew and quickly apologized, "Sorry, I just lost my temper. It's just that Sakura and Ino wouldn't keep their big mouth's shut. I swear that I won't do that again in front of any of you. Especially you MOMO."

MOMO giggled playfully and hugged Ash. "Thank you for the apology." She said as she let go.

Ash couldn't help but blush. "Y-y-y-you're w-w-w-w-welcome." He stammered. He turned around and shouted, "Pikachu hit me with thunder." A blast of extremely powerful electricity hit Ash and made him freeze as he tried to recover. "Th-th-th-thanks P-p-p-pikachu. I f-f-f-feel a little b-b-bit b-better." He said as the electricity left his body.

"Did that hurt?" KOS-MOS asked looking at Ash curiously.

"Yeah I've been hit with Pikachu electric attacks before. I'm used to it by now." Ash said as he adjusted his cap. His stomach growled, "Sorry," he said putting his hands on his stomach, "out all of the excitement, I forgot to eat breakfast."

"The Ichiraku Ramen Shop opened up an hour ago," Kiba said to him. "They always serve the best food in the Village according to Naruto."

"Yeah, great idea we'll all go for an early lunch." Ash said generously. "My treat."

---

At the Ichiraku Ramen Shop Ash ordered the new dish that he had invented, the Ketchum Special, he sniffed the broth and licked, "Wow that smells good."

"I'll bet it does." Ash looked to his left and saw Naruto who had just ordered the same meal. "Let's see how it tastes."

Ash took in a spoonful of broth but spat it out. "Hey what the heck is in that stuff?" He coughed. He saw that a pile of sand had accumulated in the broth. He picked up the sand as it ran through his fingers. "Why would sand be in ramen broth?" The answer hit him right in the face. "Gaara."

"Who?" Shion asked eager to know why he said that name.

Ash drank the ramen, noodles and all before saying, "No time to explain the details. Naruto, take a look outside and see if there are any holes taken out of the sides of buildings."

Naruto looked out if the noodle bar and low and behold, there were holes blasted out of the sides of the buildings around it. "You're right. There are holes in some of the buildings." He said if fear.

"Then "he" has already been here." Ash said.

"You mean that…" Naruto gasped.

"Yes," Ash looked at him in despair, "the Shukaku is out again."


	8. The Tempest Rageth upon Thee

If you liked the previous chapters where Ash was as gentle as a Togepi, you'll love this one. The Reason I say that, is because I have put in yet another jutsu. I will now let you, the reader, do what you do the best. Read, review, critique, and suggest ideas for a new chapter and/or story.

---

Ash and the gang rounded up the other Genin level ninja and explain the mission, a simple retrieval of a missing, dangerous, S-rank shinobi. He and the others met in the center of the village and divided the group up into pairs of two. "All right, we'll have to divide up into groups of two so we can both cover more ground," He passed out head set radios before he continued, "but in case a group of us does find Gaara we can radio in for back up. Now I'll choose who will go with whom. Naruto will go with Hinata, Sakura will go with Sasuke, May you'll go with Max because I don't want to break up the brother, sister relationship between you two, Shion will go with Jr., Ziggy will go with Neji, Tenten will go with Shino, Chouji will go with Ino, T-elos will go with KOS-MOS, Shikamaru will go with Kiba, Temari will go with Kankuro, Lee will go with Miyuki, and I'll go with MOMO."

"All right, now whom will we go with?" Asked a voice from behind Ash.

He turned around and saw Kakashi, Guy Sensei, Kurenai Sensei, and Asuma Sensei standing around waiting for their pairing. "Oh, why did you have to come waltzing in to my business Kakashi Sensei?" Ash complained.

"I'm sorry Ash," Kakashi said calmly, "I didn't know that this was a private mission."

"All right," Ash said with grief, "I guess a nod is as good as a wink to a blind Ponyta when it comes to complaining in this situation. Kakashi you'll go with Kurenai, Asuma will go with Guy. Now before we split up does their anyone else want to go along with us on our little adventure?" There was no reply, "Good," he said throwing a kunai into the ground, "we meet back here in four hours. Anyone who does find Gaara radio and we'll come for back up. No one leaves the village gates."

---

The group had dispersed in all directions; Ash and MOMO had gone towards the mountain of the Hokages where a tunnel had been cut into the side of the mountain. Ash had been told not to go into dark places by Kakashi Sensei, because he would get an incurable bloodlust that would make him go completely out of control. He was told to activate the curse mark to prevent the urge. He did as he was told, and he and MOMO and Pikachu entered the cave. Ash began hearing a low but loud growl from the upper levels so MOMO drew her bow and followed Ash up to where the light was able to pass through the eyeholes of the great stone faces. When they got to the top they froze in fear when they saw the half demon, half human Shukaku Gaara. His body was half of Gaara's body and his other half was a cat like with a thick tail and a long beastly arm. He turned around and they saw his crazed face. One human eye, and an eye with a black eyeball with a yellow iris with a cross-shaped pupil with four blue dots in between the four points. He launched himself at Ash and MOMO, who ran out of the caves. "Everyone MOMO and I have found the target. I repeat we've found the target."

"What is the target's condition?" Kakashi asked.

"The target is hostile, very hostile. I'm going to lead him to the arena for the Chunin Exam's Final Rounds. I'll try to stop him there." Ash replied confidently. "MOMO get on my back," He said, "I'm going to show you how fast I can go." MOMO climbed on and Ash waited until Gaara blasted out of tunnels right at them. Ash moved like a bullet from a gun, he was moving so fast that his formed a rut on the ground four seconds after his feet hit. This left Gaara a good trail to follow, in case he lost sight of them, but he had no use for the trail because he never lost them from his psychopathic eyes.

_Where do you think you're going you little brat? _He thought. _Come back and let me feel the joy and excitement that makes me enjoy being alive._ When they got to the stadium Gaara realized what he was trying to do. "I see, you're trying to lure me away from the village so that I don't try to hurt anyone. Now where's the fun in that?"

"MOMO," Ash said as he put down his friend and hugged her tightly, "I hope that you won't get hurt. So stay here. I don't want to have anything to happen to you."

"Ash," MOMO said as she looked deeply into his eyes with deep affection, "you have my word that I won't move from this seat."

"Good," Ash said as he darted out onto this combat field, "I hope that new secret technique will work." He got out onto the field and got into his combat position, "Pikachu, I want you to go and keep MOMO out of the stadium." The creature obeyed and scurried up into the stands. "All right Gaara let's see who is more powerful."

"Good," Gaara shouted, "I also want to prove that I am the faster one."

"Bring it on ugly," Ash said confidently, "I can take you on."

"Die." Gaara roared as his arm stretched out and rocketed toward him. Ash jumped up and ran along the top of the arm. He was about to duck and hit him with a spinning kick to the face but Gaara retract his arm before he launched it right at Ash's skull. Unfortunately for Gaara, Ash substituted himself with a log with a large number of explosive tags on it. Ash had hidden the main bomb at the entrance of the arena and super glued the log to Gaara as son as he substituted himself. And to make sure that Gaara was not able to get rid of the log by detaching his monstrous arm from the rest of his body, he tied the explosive's wires around the transformed side of Gaara's body so he didn't hurt the human half. He got to the entrance and set off the explosives, which went off like a cluster of angry Voltorb. When the smoke cleared Gaara didn't look like a terrifying bloodthirsty monster bent on destroying all of human kind, instead he looked like a sand castle had thrown up all over him.

"Hey Gaara," Ash shouted, "How do you feel about life now?"

"That was not fair at all," Gaara, complained, "how did you manage to do all of that in the blink of an eye?"

"If I told you," Ash said braggingly, "than it wouldn't be my original idea."

"All right," Gaara said excitedly as the left side of his body regenerated, "now take off those weights that you had on. Show me the true speed you can move at without weights."

"All right," Ash said with relief as he let the two hundred fifty pounds worth of excess weight plummet to the ground and resulted in an explosion. After he had shown Gaara the full extent of his upper body strength, he launched himself right at Gaara and nailed him right in the left of the face, "eat this." Gaara went flying back into the wall leaving an impact crater in the spot where he hit. He quickly recovered and ran at Ash, who jumped up into the air and commenced hand signs, "Inu, Tatsu, Ushi, Mi, Hitsuji, Saru, Tori, Inu, Uma, Hitsuji, Tori, Mi, Ne, Tora. Fire Style: Tempest Flame Jutsu!" With one breath a sea of searing white-hot fire blasted down onto Gaara who cowered beneath his sand shield. But he was not getting away from the roaring fire, the sand melted into glass and the armor had slid right off and it burned every skin cell on Gaara's body. The burns made him scream in pain, he felt like he was in a barrel of acid that was eating away at his skin cell by burning cell. He had never been in so much pain from just a fire style jutsu before, the last time had had a fire technique used on him was when the Sand Village and the Sound Village had joined forces to destroy the Leaf Village, but it was just a standard fireball jutsu and his armor was thick enough to absorb the technique. "Hmph, that technique was hotter than a flash of lightning so it was hot enough to melt that armor away and expose your skin to the flames. Now, why don't you just give up so I can give you the counter jutsu and you can stop being an insane killing machine?" Ash said with a look of boredom on his face.

"All right," Gaara screamed in agony, "but do it quick, I don't think that I can stand this pain for much longer!"

"As you wish." Ash said calmly, "Tora, Ne, Mi, Tori, Hitsuji, Uma, Inu, Tori, Saru Hitsuji, Mi, Ushi, Tatsu, Inu. Ice Style: Antarctic Gale Jutsu." Once again, it only took one long breath to unleash a freezing wind that cooled Gaara's skin cells to the core. The burns were one hundred percent healed.

"Ugh," Gaara grunted in relief, "I never knew how badly pain like that felt until today. I now feel like I was wrong to transform again and try to control the power of the Shukaku."

"What made you want to try to control a demon like that?" Ash asked.

"Because," Gaara said trying to stand up, "you can control the power of the creature inside of you. I thought that I could to. But it looks like I did nothing but reopen old an old wound."

"That's why I don't demand control of the demon inside of me," Ash said frustrated, "a demon is like a pokemon, if you control it with force, you'll only end up becoming it's enemy. If that happens it'll just try to destroy you and go out of control. You have to let it become your friend. Necros and me have become the best of friends, and that means that if I'm in a dangerous situation he'll defend me."

"But the Shukaku can't be friendly at the least. All it ever does is try to kill all of the humans or things that I come in contact with. So I have to force it to obey me."

"Well enough about that," Ash said with a look of extreme boredom on his face, "just don't let the Shukaku try to do anything that poses a threat to me, my friends, or the girl I love." His temper was far from pleasant, "If that happens I'll use the Tempest Inferno Jutsu, and I won't hold back."

"Fair enough," Gaara said, "I'll never try to do anything this stupid again."

"All right," Ash said looking at a watch that Sakura had given him, "it's been almost for hours since I told the search party to look for you. Come on MOMO," He called up into the stands, "come down Gaara's back to normal."

MOMO hopped down out of the stands and ran over to Ash and hugged him lovingly, "That performance you put on was so cool. When did you learn how to do that technique? I t was so amazing, I hope you can teach me."

"Which technique do you want to learn? The Tempest Flame, or the Antarctic Gale?" Ash asked.

"I'd like to learn the Antarctic Gale." MOMO said softly. " I've never been very fond of fire. To me it symbolizes the recklessness of human kind."

"Well," Ash reassured, "to me, the way I use it, fire symbolizes the courage and will to win that fuels me in the middle of a battle."

"And I suppose the ice and snow symbolizes mercy, compassion, and kindness?" MOMO asked.

"Actually," Ash said feeling the same thoughtfulness as MOMO, "that's exactly what ice and snow symbolize to me."

"Who is is this girl?" Gaara asked. "Where is she from?"

"I think that you asked the wrong question." Ash replied, "I think that you should ask when she's from, not where she's form. And to answer those questions, her name is MOMO, she's from the year T.C.4769. A little while earlier today, I went out and retrieved her and seven other people from the woods outside of the village gate." He turned away with Gaara outside of her hearing range and added, "Plus, I think she really likes me. And by that, I mean likes me, likes me."

"I thought that you said that you didn't want a girl friend." Gaara said questioningly.

Ash clenched his fist, but he remembered his promise to MOMO never to lose his temper in front of her, and unclenched it, "Well I changed my mind because she didn't go crazy and try to kiss me until I suffocated. She just hugged me is all."

"Well I can see why you like her," Gaara smiled, "she's cute, funny, bubbly, and smart."

Ash was about to answer when he felt the hair on the back of his neck stand on end. He pushed Gaara forward and teleported out of the way before T-elos stabbed him with her sword. "T-elos," he shouted, "what the heck is wrong with you?"

"I thought that Gaara was going to try to kill you." T-elos said apologetically. "So I attacked in order to stop the attack."

"Well will you make sure that you don't do that again?" Ash demanded, "You almost stabbed me in the shoulder. Be sure that you don't try that again or I'll dismantle you."

"Sheesh," T-elos said offended, "you don't have to be so cryptic."

"T-elos is right," Ash looked behind him to see KOS-MOS looking at him, "cryptic threats will get us no where."

"Well," Ash tried to change the subject of the conversation, "the good thing that came out of this, is me and MOMO found Gaara without him causing any serious damage."

"That's right," MOMO chimed in, "the only thing that we need to fox, is the path leading here from the cliffs at the edge of the village."

"Well don't worry, we'll get a few of the citizens in the village to repair the indention in the ground." Kakashi said as he walked through the gate of the arena.

Suddenly, a kunai knife buried its tip in the wall beside Ash. A figure ran right at him leaped and shouted, "Dynamic Entry!" Had the figure's foot was ready to hit Ash's face, Ash grabbed it and threw the figure, who turned out to be Guy Sensei, face first into the wall.

"What's the deal of trying to hit me in the face, you creep?!" Ash asked irritated.

"Ow," Guy groveled, "I forgot my mirror at my house so I used my headband to try and see who was in the stadium, I got caught up in the drama of the moment and couldn't stop. I'm sorry if I scared you."

Ash couldn't hold back his irritation, "You are so ANNOYING." Ash dove on Guy and he pounded him. The tussle was so violent that it raised a dust cloud that was so thick that "cut it with a knife." When the others got to the stadium, they saw the struggle of the day, Ash was kicked out of the cloud, "Oh, so that's the way you want it huh? Transform." A smoke appeared and dissipated revealing that Ash had transformed into a Hitmonchan. "Hitmon, chan, hit, mon, mon. (Prepare for the taste of a genuine knuckle sandwich, with real knuckles.)" He raged as he charged back into the dust cloud, with his fists flailing in all directions.

"Wow, Ash is so cool!" Jr. and Max said excitedly.

"I know." Brock added. "Who knew that Ash could actually transform into a pokemon."

MOMO was laughing at the quarrel. "Oh my gosh," She giggled, "I never knew that Ash could do something like that. And the way he can fight like that. He is just hysterical."

The group of friends had a pleasant experience in the village. Guy Sensei had a slight concussion for the rest of the night. And Gaara had a good night sleep for once in his life.


	9. MOMO's Blizzrad Breath

MOMO was promised by Ash to learn how to do the Antarctic Gale Jutsu and because Ash was intoxicated with her feelings for him, he had no choice but to teach her how to use the freezing technique. Jr. was excited that he was going to learn how to do the Tempest Flame Jutsu, because he was obsessed with fire and firearms. He always carried two pistols, in holsters, everywhere he went, but today he left them in the room he was staying in so that the gunpowder wouldn't ignite and blow up both of the guns. They had all gone to the training field where Ash's ninja legacy had begun, and they started with the basics. "All right Jr.," Ash said confidently to his student, "before I teach you and MOMO how to do the techniques, you'll have to learn about the element of all ninja techniques, chakra."

"Aw man." Jr. groaned, "I thought that we were just going to learn the technique."

"Jr.," MOMO said hitting him in the shoulder, "we need to know what's involved in the process of a jutsu so that we can do them properly."

"Good explanation MOMO," Ash said, "if this training field were a class room, I'd give you an A plus. Now what you need to know first, is that chakra is the basic building block of a ninja."

"And what does it look like?" Jr. asked.

"Well," Ash said putting his hand in front of him and focusing the flow of energy into the palm, "it looks like this." An ultraviolet blue flame appeared in his hand.

MOMO and Jr. gazed at it. "Wow," MOMO said, "it's so pretty."

"I thought it was a different color." Jr. said.

"You want to see a different color of chakra?" Ash asked as he concentrated more energy into his opposite hand. "How's this?"

A dark purple flame appeared in his hand it had a very evil luster to it. "I think that it's a little bit creepy to you the truth." MOMO said as she shivered.

:"Not bad." Jr. said, "Does it come in red?"

"Are you sure that you want to see red chakra?" Ash asked hesitantly.

"Yeah show me what red chakra looks and feels like." Jr. said boldly, unaware of what Ash would do next.

"All right," Ash said having regrets about what he was getting himself into, "stand back, because red chakra is the most dangerous and the most unpredictable kind of chakra. It has been said that it is living chakra that has a mind of its own." He dissipated the to flares of chakra in his palms and started to concentrate as hard as he could. A low roaring noise came from out of nowhere as a thick angry red colored energy appeared around Ash in a thin swirling vortex. Four strands of the chakra joined together forming a large face that looked like a cat, with the nose of a dog, the eyes of a raccoon, the whiskers of a dragon, a beak like a turtle, feathers that looked like those of a cockatrice, the teeth of a fox, and the fangs of a snake. It was a frightening sight the likes of which MOMO and Jr. had never seen in their lives. Ash on the other hand was getting whipped into frenzy, something awful. His teeth got sharper and looked more like fangs than human teeth, his eyes looked like those of a carnivorous animal, and his hair grew longer and became more tangled and messy. He knew that he had to calm down before his demon side came out and went after his friends. He quickly stopped the release of his demon half's chakra before he started to do any damage to his students.

MOMO was cowering behind Jr. and said, "Is it over, is Ash back to his normal self again?"

Ash panted heavily as he regained control of himself, "Yeah MOMO, ugh, I'm all right, I over did it a little bit, but I'm all right."

"Wow," Jr. chirped, "That red chakra is powerful."

"Neji says that it isn't chakra at all," Ash remarked, "He claims it is alive. Me, I say that it is a creature that can be tamed with time, control, and patience."

"I'll say," MOMO shuddered, "did you see what it did to you, it changed your eyes, your hair, your teeth, your voice, it changed basically everything about you. I hope that you won't do that again."

"I hardly ever use the red chakra as it is." Ash retaliated, "I think that it might be best if you show a little gratitude for that."

"I'm sorry." MOMO said as tears welled up in her eyes, "I just don't like to see anything that poses as a threat to anyone of my friends." She ran and hugged Ash tightly with much affection and kissed him on the cheek.

Ash blushed with a little bit of embarrassment, this came from the fact that no girl, accept for a girl that turned out to be a Latias in the shape of a girl, had kissed him or hugged him with so much affection before. "Okay MOMO," Ash said breathing shallowly, "You're suffocating me you know." She let go and blushed enough to put Hinata's feelings for Naruto in jeopardy. Ash put his hand on her shoulder smiled stared deeply into her eyes and said, "MOMO, I'll only use that red chakra when you or any of your friends are in danger. Okay?"

She nodded and said, "All right, I think that's a fairly reasonable way to use that chakra. I agree."

"Hmph well I think he should use it more often." Said a mysterious voice from behind them. "He was so powerful looking in that pose and I was wondering if he would become one of my sound ninja." Ash turned around and saw the reason for the Leaf Village was in danger sense the Chunin Exams were over. It was man with long hair as black as a moonless night, evil, yellow, animal-like eyes, ghostly white skin from head to foot, he had purple colored shadows over his eyes, and wore a yellow kimono tied by purple rope.

"You must be," He paused for a moment and continued, this time he had a smile on his face, "Orochimaru." He paused again to look his situation over, "Well I think that you have walked into a sticky situation. Now say your prayers, T-elos, KOS-MOS, get 'em."

"Roger that." KOS-MOS shouted as her foot collided with Orochimaru's face. "T-elos, the enemy units strength far out matches ours."

"It may out match your strength," Ash remarked, "but not mine."

Orochimaru was not impressed, so he engaged the boy in combat, big mistake on his part. "GRAAAAAHHH!" The freak screamed with overconfidence.

"Pointless." Ash said, nailing Orochimaru a punch to the stomach. When Orochimaru's ear got near Ash's face, the boy grinned and said, "You're pathetic, OLD MAN." The next move that Ash made was taking off his weights. He drew back and ran at Orochimaru so fast that he was invisible to even a high-speed camera. His performance was fascinating to MOMO, T-elos, and KOS-MOS.

"Ash is moving at a current speed of fifty thousand miles per hour, contact with him could mean utter destruction." KOS-MOS said as she observed him in amazement.

"Extraordinary," T-elos said with equal astonishment, "he can actually move at that speed without falling apart."

Ash was proud of his movement speed himself; he could cut corners like never before. Orochimaru was jealous, "Perhaps he could be a good body for me take. Sasuke couldn't move at even a fraction of the speed he's going at." But his fascination was cut in half when he felt Ash's nails dig into his back, "Urgh, then again he already has a curse mark that can't be destroyed so I'll just stick with Sasuke." Ash caught him by surprise and bit him in the leg and beat him down by continuously jumping on him and kicking him in the face. Ash disappeared again but came down on Orochimaru with his fist drawn back, he didn't get hit, but the rock he switched himself with exploded into millions of pieces when Ash landed the punch on it.

"All right," Ash said staring at Orochimaru, "I'm through fighting like a kid, eat this. Inu, Tatsu, Ushi, Mi, Hitsuji, Saru, Tori, Inu, Uma, Hitsuji, Tori, Mi, Ne, Tora; Fire Style: Tempest Flame Jutsu" White hot flames shot out of Ash's mouth and spread everywhere making it impossible for Orochimaru to escape.

Orochimaru was burning and screaming in terrible pain, "AGH, WHAT DID I EVER DO TO DESERVE THIS! I AM IMMORTAL, PAIN SHOULDN'T MATTER TO ME!"

"That's where you're wrong, Orochimoron," Ash retaliated, "immortality still means that you feel intense pain. It doesn't mean that you can just walk away from pain like this."

"SHUT UP, YOU INSOLANT LITTLE BRAT!" Orochimaru screamed in agony, "I'LL SHOW YOU WHAT REAL PAIN IS ABOUT!" He tried to move, but the burning of all his skin cells was to much for him to take, so he just laid where he was still grunting from the pain of all his skin cells which had been set on fire.

Ash looked at him and said, "Now get out of here, Seviper breathe. You're interrupting my lesson." With that Orochimaru simply disappeared into the ground sulking at the fact that a child had beaten him. Ash returned to his students and said, "Now, where were we?"

"We were about to learn chakra control." MOMO said, "But I think I know how to do that already."

"Oh," Ash asked," well if that's right, why don't you demonstrate?"

"All right." MOMO giggled and closed her eyes. She concentrated hard enough and walked up to a tree trunk and walked straight up to one of the branches. "Is that good?"

"I'm impressed." Ash called up, _she's even cute when she's up in a tree._ It was unbelievable, the girl he loved to death just all around impressed Ash.

MOMO jumped down and landed on her feet, She turned to Jr. and thought, _I hope that Jr. isn't to mad at me for doing that._

"Not bad MOMO." Jr. said smiling, _although it sucks that I was just owned by a girl._

KOS-MOS was continuously thinking about how Ash could know as much as there was to know about having friends and fighting at the same time. She scanned him deeply and saw the curse mark. _Interesting,_ She thought, _he seems to be holding another being inside of him that never came up on previous scans. He must be concealing it from everyone he knows._

"Uh… KOS-MOS," Ash asked feeling a little bit weirded out, "why are you looking at me like a Seedot looks at a tree top?"

"Sorry," She said as she drew her head back, "it's just that I saw that mark on your right eye."

"Oh yeah that thing," Ash said putting his hand over his eye trying to hide it from the androids sight, "it's nothing to worry about, it's been there for going on thirteen years now and it only took me by surprise once, and that time I lost control and threw Sasuke into a brick wall. I'm still a little bit giggly about that."

MOMO had figured out her own variation of the Antarctic Gale Jutsu by now and she was dying to show Ash. She had taken and used every other hand sign and made a new jutsu and named it the Blizzard Breath Jutsu. She was eager to show her teacher in her progress, she tugged on his arm. He turned and asked, "What is it MOMO? Do you want to show me something?"

"Yes." She said. "I made up a jutsu that I just have to show you."

"All right," Ash eagerly, "let's see what you came up with."

"Okay," MOMO took a deep breath, " Ne, Tori, Uma, Tori, Hitsuji, Ushi, Inu;  
Ice Style: Blizzard Breath Jutsu!" She exhaled and a powerful wind of ice and snow which turned the forest to the left into a wintery portrait of beauty.

"Wow," Ash said quietly, "That attack was almost as beautiful as you MOMO."

"Thanks." MOMO couldn't help but blush, "I think that your Antarctic Gale Jutsu is pretty nice to. I mean I would like to see it again."

"Anything for you MOMO." Ash winked, "Ne, Mi, Tori, Hitsuji, Uma, Inu, Tori, Saru, Hitsuji, Mi, Ushi, Tatsu, Inu; Ice Style: Antarctic Gale Jutsu." He exhaled and a freezing wind of great power erupted from his mouth that turned everything in its path to ice. Not even the thick forest was a match for the searing cold winds.

"Whoa," MOMO said with a look of surprise on her face, "that jutsu is better than mine."

"But," Ash said, "you created your jutsu to prove your passion of gentleness and love over raw strength and brute force. That is why I'm impressed with your talent and rapid progression."

MOMO was moved by Ash's words and said, "Ash, that was very sweet of you to say. Thank you for being so kind to me and my friends."

Jr. was equally impressed and he came up with his own variation of the Tempest Flame Jutsu, which he called the Solar Flare Jutsu. "Hey Ash," he said with boundless confidence, "I want to show you my new jutsu."

"Okay," Ash said with less eagerness than he had when MOMO wanted to show him her technique, "let's see what you can do." _This should be good. _Ash thought. _He does have a lot of enthusiasm and an over abundance of confidence, I'll give him that much. But that kid is a little hot head. He might have a little trouble with my judgment of him. But what the hay, I'll show him a little bit of gratitude if he does his best not to screw up any._

"Okay here I go." Jr. said taking a deep breath. "Tatsu, Mi, Saru, Inu, Hitsuji, Mi, Tora; Fire Style: Solar Flare Jutsu." He exhaled unleashing a looping stream of blue fire. The flare amazingly stayed inside the boundaries of the practice field.

_Wow, _Ash thought,_ this kid shows amazing control of his chakra. He's possibly even better than Sakura with chakra control and strategy. But MOMO has more of a thought perspective with this kind of stuff. Naruto and his demon, the Kyuubi, are probably going to be in for a rough fight if they challenge us._

"Interesting," T-elos said to herself, "it's hard to believe that Ash can get along with anyone and still be intense on the field of battle. I should keep a weather eye out for his ingenuity."

"Good job, both of you." Ash said as he put his arms around his students, "As a reward for being the best that you are, I'll show you something that no one but my opponents have seen. Eyes of Darkness." His eyes turned dark purple, his pupils turned white, three white commas appeared in a circle around the pupils in each eye, the veins behind his eyes bulged out. "This is my Kekkei Genkai, my ninja blood line trait."

"Wow!" His students chirped.

"Impressive," KOS-MOS said as she analyzed his gene-inherited trait, "your eyes seem to deplete the usage of this chakra you spoke of earlier in your Ninjutsu."

"Yeah," Ash said scratching the back of his neck, "it's been like that since I started using it. I'm immune to the effects of the Sharingan and Byakugan eyes. My clan was the base clan for both the Uchiha and Hyuga clans' Kekkei Genkai."

"That's intriguing," T-elos said, "so you can see through things and predict movements of your opponent."

"Not only that," Ash replied, "I can hide myself from the detection of other shinobi. I've used it a few times to spy on Kakashi Sensei. You wouldn't know the kind of dirt I dug up on that guy. Oh and I've trained outside of Kakashi's supervision and developed a few new techniques."

"Really?" Kakashi said as he jumped out of a tree in front of him, "Well I would like to see them, that is, if you don't mind."

"Sure thing Sensei." Ash said as he went through the hand signs for the Chidori, "Chidori," A blue-white colored energy appeared in Ash's hand and sounded like a flock of one thousand birds, _time for an upgrade, _Ash thought as the energy changed from blue to gold, "Spirit Blade!" he shouted, but the energy changed again so that the outer area was white and the center of the strands of lightning. Ash shouted at the top of his lungs, "LIFE BLADE!" The energy buzzed and hummed like a live electrical wire.

"I don't believe my eyes," Kakashi said with an expression of amazed on his scantly exposed face, "not even Naruto has enough chakra to execute the Chidori at that level. He must be using his Kekkei Genkai in synchronization with the Life Blade."

Ash was even impressed with himself, he looked to his friends and declared, "Well, it's getting close to lunch, and I think that we might all need to get something to eat. Let's go, I'm hungry. I'll even pay." The six friends headed back to the ramen for the Ketchum Special, and to discuss what happened during the training session that morning.


	10. Pesky Pokemon Thieves: Ash's Dark Secret

It had been three days since MOMO and Jr. had learned their new jutsu, MOMO had been getting to know Ash better and vise-versa, things had been going pretty smoothly and Ash was so amazed at how much he had learned about his heritage. He was looking forward to finding out about his home and was eagerly waiting for Lady Tsunade to approve the mission to look for the location. But until that happened, he thought he'd enjoy what the village had to offer, and get to know MOMO a little bit better. But unknown to him, in the bushes were three crafty and sneaky, okay they were the worlds least wanted thieves, members of Team Rocket, there's a surprise, not, who were waiting for the moment to take Ash's Pikachu.

"James do me a huge favor and tell me why we have to wear these ridiculous disguises?" Asked a girl with fuchsia colored hair.

"Because Jessie," Replied a boy with blue hair, "we don't won't to be caught like we did last time."

"Yeah well maybe if yous two haddena been doin' da motto we wouldda gotten dat twoip's Pikachu an' gotten away." Said a cat like creature with a golden charm on its head.

"Oh really?" Asked a very cold and familiar voice, "And tell me how stupid do you feel right now?" The three turned around to see Ash staring hatefully at them. Pikachu climbed up onto his head and caught the thieves' attention, "Pikachu's within arm's reach." Ash taunted with a grin on his face, "So, what are you waiting for? Are you going to try to grab Pikachu or what?" Jessie, James, and Meowth were stunned, but greed overcame confusion and they made a grab for Pikachu. But, before they came within a millimeter of touching the lightning bolt-tailed rabbit-like pokemon, Ash vanished and they somehow ended up tied to a light pole. "You three are… slower then when we last met." Ash called down from the top of the pole, "You'll never be able to commit any serious crimes here, you know. Here, you're not top of the line criminals, you're only D-Ranked amateurs in the Leaf Village bingo book."

"What are you talking about you twerp," Jessie retaliated, "we're high class criminals. Meowth cut this rope so we can grab that twerp's pokemon and get out of here."

Meowth tried to cut the cord that bound them to the light pole but for some reason his claws couldn't cut the cord even though it was very thin and delicate. But it was virtually impossible to cut; he noticed a thin blue aura on the edge of the cord. "Hey what gives?" He asked angrily, "Dis stupid string ain't breaking?"

Ash grinned and said, "That's because that's a chakra thread. If chakra is flowing through it, it can't be severed. You can only cut it with an enchanted weapon. You need to have special type of charm to be able to give it that kind of power. But of course you three aren't smart enough to know anything like that or you'd have cut yourselves free and taken Pikachu." He looked up at the creature on his head, "Right buddy?"

"Pika, pika." Pikachu replied.

Ash looked back down to Jessie, James, and Meowth and commenced producing hand seals, "Hitsuji, Mi, Tora. Shadow Clone Jutsu." At that moment, a screen of white smoke exploded from under him and out jumped an exact replica of Ash. The clone had attached the chakra threads to his fingers continuing the flow of chakra that made it unbreakable. The real Ash jumped down, turned to his clone and said, "Hey, I'm going to go get something to eat. Do you think that you could stay here and make sure that these three knuckleheads don't try to escape."

The clone looked over his shoulder and said, "Okay. I'll make sure they don't try any funny stuff."

---

Ash was feeling phenomenally hungry today, so he headed to the Ichiraku Ramen Bar and ordered the Ketchum Special; it was his personal favorite that he had created. "So, I can see that your still eating that same Specialty, eh Pokefreak?" Naruto said over Ash's shoulder.

"Yeah I still am Nari." Ash said aggressively, "I take it that you're still eating the Ketchum Special too?"

"You've got it," Naruto glared, "and I think that we should see who can eat the most."

"All right," Ash said, "I accept. But let's make it interesting."

"I'm listening." Naruto said intrigued at the idea.

"The loser pays the bill." Ash told his friend. "So what do you say? Deal? Or…"

"I accept!" Naruto shouted.

"Well, are you gonna shout in my face all day," Ash slammed his fist onto the table and turned his glance towards the chef and said, "We'll both have the Ketchum Special, and keep it coming."

"You've got it." Said the chef. He placed a bowl each in front the boys and said, "All right, here are your bowls. Now I want a good, clean match, that means no rough stuff. No physical contact, no spiking your opponents ramen, and no tricks." He held up a napkin like a flag, dropped it and said, "Begin!"

The two took their chopsticks and began wolfing down bowl after bowl of ramen. MOMO and Jr. pulled back the curtain, as Ash held up his bowl and said, "More please." Jr. was surprised about seeing the competitive side of Ash this early in the day. MOMO just giggled at the sight but Ash paid no attention to her and continued on eating his ramen. It didn't matter about Naruto's progress at all he was falling behind as Ash was concerned. Ash's blinding speed and appetite combined proved incredible in the contest.

Naruto was on his fourth bowl and Ash was on his eighth bowl and Naruto didn't seem like he was going to show any signs of giving up. But Ash wanted to obey the rules; after all, he didn't want to make it look like he was a cheat, because he never was a cheater. KOS-MOS and Shion were walking in the direction of the contest and noticed the commotion. They walked over to the front of the shop and Shion asked, "What's up with those two? They look really intense."

"Yes," KOS-MOS said, "I've never seen either of them this competitive before."

Jr. looked at KOS-MOS and said, "Well apparently, Ash challenged Naruto to an eating contest, and the loser has to pay the bill."

"I see," KOS-MOS said still looking a bit puzzled, "and it appears as though Ash's winning."

"Leave it to a human to go and make a fool of himself in front of people like this." The four friends turned to se T-elos standing behind them with her hand on her hip.

Ash only had to turn his eyes to see T-elos at the corner of his eye and finished his nineteenth bowl of ramen. He turned to Naruto and said, "Naruto why don't we just end this, I mean I've already eaten twice as many bowls of ramen as you and you'll make yourself sick if you try to push yourself to try and win."

"Ugh," Naruto groaned as he put belched and put his hand on his stomach, "I guess you're right, I guess I admit that you're better than me at this. I'll pay the bill as promised."

"Hmph," T-elos scoffed, "typical human nature. That is why machines will always be better than humans in the long run."

She blinked and as she opened her eyes again, Ash was only a fraction of a second away from punching her in the face. She only ducked back and kicked Ash in the bottom jaw, back flipped onto her feet, and caught Ash a swift uppercut to his face. But instead of Ash flying backwards, he just stood there while something that looked like a faceplate flew through the air and shattered as it hit the roof of the Ichiraku Noodle Bar. T-elos was surprised about what had happened next. Ash flung the upper half of his body, which should've been torn off because of the force behind the punch, and revealed what was behind the faceplate. It was the face of a shinobi puppet, but Naruto had never seen one like this on, the eyes were red and demonic, the wood was pitch black, and there were no strings protruding from the joints. The puppets head came level so fast that it began clacking insanely. "Well, well, well looks like someone had to go and attacking the second most powerful shadow-demon puppet in the Hidden Shadow Village." Ash said as he came out of the side of a building behind T-elos.

T-elos turned around and saw where the real Ash was. KOS-MOS had been making an analysis on the shadow puppet but she was having no success in the matter. She found no energy levels, no place of origin, and no data on who created the puppet. She turned to Shion and said, "Shion I cannot find any data on the origin of the object that is about to engage T-elos in battle."

Shion looked quizzically at the puppet and put on an analyzer that looked like ordinary glasses and… she too had no luck in gathering any data. "I'm not having any luck either, KOS-MOS." She said disappointedly.

"Oh, please." Ash said with a grin, "Just give it a rest, you can't anything out about that puppet because it doesn't exist."

Naruto, being the clueless nuisance that he is, asked Ash, "What are you talking about? How can that puppet not exist if we can see it standing right in front of us? And another thing, if it's a puppet, where are the strings that make the thing move?"

The puppets head clicked and rotated to where it could speak to Naruto, "You really are an idiot, the answer to your last question is an easy one, my controls are on the inside. As for the question of me not existing, I'm afraid if I told you that, you wouldn't understand."

"You stupid wooden doll prepare to say your prayers." T-elos said.

The puppet turned back to T-elos and said, "Bring it on you worthless mechanical hunk of junk, I'll send you crawling back to the scrap yard you crawled out of with a ball and chain attached to your leg."

"I'll make you eat those words." T-elos threatened.

"No thanks, I ate before I got here." The puppet said making MOMO and Jr. laugh. "Now enough of the chit-chat, my dear, let's cut the chase." The puppets currently functional part was its head and neck. It launched its head at T-elos with its teeth buzzing, popping, and crackling like a power cord. T-elos jumped extended the sword blade in her left hand and sliced off the puppet's right arm which shattered like a piece of frozen glass.

When T-elos landed, she turned around and chuckled, "Looks like I've disarmed you."

But the puppet was more clever than T-elos, a long black arm extended and clicked as it began moving, "Let's not cut any corners in the combat handbook." The arm lifted the covered body of the puppet up into the air and made it harder for T-elos to reach it. "Going up." It said as it rose up. When it was at a decent height, it shouted "Time to pump up the bass line." T-elos was confused but she soon found out what she soon found what the crazed puppet meant when she was blasted back by a powerful shockwave. But she recovered wall kicked up to an even height with the puppet and sliced through its left arm. The same thing happened as the right arm, another arm clacked and clicked as it began to move.

Ash just laughed as hew saw the puppet being cut by T-elos' sword. "She's cut gonna keep cutting that puppet and the puppets gonna keep growing new limbs until its body is hit. And then it'll be all over and the puppet will tear her apart."

"Are you serious?" Jr. asked.

"Don't worry about it I'm not gonna let her cut his legs off. Let alone his torso." Ash said as he snapped his fingers and made the puppet disappear. Ash looked down at his shadow and pointed at T-elos. His shadow seemed to move like a large tentacle towards T-elos, a long black arm shot out towards her and grabbed on to her. Ash cocked his head to side and the arm pulled T-elos back towards the group. Naruto, MOMO, Jr., and Shion just stared in horror as T-elos was released and flew face first into Ash's open hand. _Now's my chance to show T-elos what I can do, _Ash thought,_ Opening of the Third Eye._ Ash channeled his chakra into his hand and opened an eye-like object in T-elos' subconscious and linked it to her optic nerve.

"Shion," KOS-MOS said, "Ash appears to be loading a small observational probe into T-elos."

"What are you talking about KOS-MOS?" MOMO asked.

KOS-MOS turned and said, "Ash is somehow creating an eyeball shaped configuration of energy inside of T-elos and linking it to her optic sensors."

Shion caught on to what KOS-MOS meant, "What you're trying to say, is that with that eye connects with T-elos' eyes, he'll be able to see what she sees?"

"Affirmative." KOS-MOS said with a nod of her head.

Ash released T-elos from his grip turned and walked away. Little did he and his friends know, that Team Rocket had watched the whole thing Jessie, looked at here two partners and said, "I can't believe it, I guess that the twerp is more powerful than when he was a pokemon trainer."

"Yah," Meowth said, "did yous two see what dat twoip can do?"

"Ugh," James groaned, "don't remind me."

The thieves decided to keep a low profile to avoid confrontation with Ash at the risk of being crushed by his puppet. But that would not stop them from keeping an eye on getting a hotshot promotion. Stay tuned to find out more.


	11. The Sound of Darkness: Pt 1

MOMO was getting really attached to Ash, but she was too afraid to tell him the truth about what she really was. It was until two days before the Spring Song and Dance Festival that she popped the question. "Ash," she said to her friend, "would you like to go to the festival with me?"

Ash was absolutely thrilled at this and said, "MOMO, I would be honored to take you to the festival. I'll pick you be at your apartment to pick you up around, 8:00 pm. If that's okay with Shion."

Shion merely looked at Ash, smiled and said, "Ash, it's okay with me if MOMO goes with you to the festival. Besides, Allen and I were also planning on going."

Allen just blushed, "Yeah, it's all perfectly okay with us."

Jr. had renewed his habit of eavesdropping on others' conversations and stepped out from behind the corner of a nearby building and said, "Well who the heck am I gonna go with? No way I'm going with either KOS-MOS or T-elos. They're going as singles."

Ash thought of something before his student began to get a little trigger happy, "Hey I know," he said, "Jr., why don't you go with Ino?"

Ino had taken a liking to the redheaded boy and said, "I'd love to go with him. What do you say cutie?"

Jr. began to blush heavily with embarrassment, "S-s-sure thing, Ino." He managed to stutter.

Naruto thought up something before he had to deal with going to the festival dateless, _Hm, Sakura is probably gonna say no if I ask her, so I'll have to ask the village wall flower to go with me instead._ He lightly tapped Hinata on her shoulder and asked, "Hey, uh Hinata, you wanna go with me to the festival?"

Hinata's face turned bright with embarrassment as she gingerly replied, "Er… uh… s-s-s-sure th-th-thing Naruto, I'll go with you to the festival if you want."

"Yo, Naruto, I see that you're hookin' up with a little lady. Huh?" Naruto turned around and saw a man in a red robe with traditional Japanese sandals, extremely spiky white hair, and red face paint coming down from under his eyes.

"Oh, shut up Pervy Sage," Naruto snapped at the middle aged man; his real name was Jiraiya, the Toad Mountain Sage writer of Kakashi Hatake's favorite series of books, the Make Out Paradise Trilogy, "I'm asking her to the Leaf Village Annual Song and Dance Festival as my date."

"Oh," said Jiraiya, "I see how it is. You're not gonna ask Sakura to the festival?"

"Yeah," Sakura said looking at Naruto questioningly, "that's what I was expecting."

"Oh sure," Naruto said mockingly, "you're just saying that to try and sound noble in front of Sasuke."

"Yeah," Sakura said, blushing at how easily Naruto had figured out why she had said what she was going to do, "you got me, Naruto." She turned to Sasuke and asked, "So do wanna go with me Sasuke?"

But as usual, Sasuke refused and blew her off like dust on an antique table top, "After a performance like that, you can forget it Sakura."

Sakura just groaned, "I guess I'm going without a date."

---

Elsewhere, a trio of shinobi was silently heading into the village, two were girls and one was a boy. The girl turned to the boy and said, "So Damien, tell me more about the kid who is supposed to be the son of the Kage of our village."

Damien, a boy with black hair, blood red eyes and ghostly white skin, turned to his sister and said, "The boys name, is Ash Ketchum. He was born in Pallet Town. But make no mistake; he is very much a true descendant of the Kage. Why are you so interested in him Lucie?"

"I'll bet she loves him Damien." Said the second girl. "She's just too afraid to admit it."

"Oh shut up, Lilith." Lucie said to her younger sister. "I just wanna know his strengths and weaknesses so I can tear him apart."

"Easy there, Lucie," Damien said, "after all, he does have that cursed demon inside of him. Remember, the one that's been around for twenty millenniums."

"Oh, yeah, what was it called again?" Lucie said, "Deonecros or better known as Omninecros because of its many dark forms. So be on the alert and don't cross the wrong path when you finally find him."

The trio headed into the village through the opening in the tunnels beneath the mountain of the Ho Kages looking for our hero.

---

Ash and MOMO were walking through the city streets their arms were locked together. MOMO felt the strange warmth of Ash's company. Ash had the same strange feeling in his chest to when he was with MOMO and he couldn't help but wonder what it was that she wanted to tell him, "Uh… hey MOMO," Ash said suddenly, "What was it that you wanted to tell me"

MOMO sighed and so said, "Ash, the thing is, I'm not a real human." She started to cry; "I'm a being known as a Realian, a synthetic human look alike, I function differently from normal humans. I hope this doesn't ruin our relationship."

Ash hugged MOMO and said, "It doesn't matter what you are. I love you for who you are and nothing else." He released MOMO, closed his right eye, and said, "All right come out, I know you're back there so show yourselves."

At that moment MOMO saw whom Ash was talking to. A trio of black haired, ghostly white skinned, and fiery red-eyed ninja dressed more like Goths stepped out of the alley carrying a large bloody bladed sword each. One of them pointed her sword at Ash and said, "Well, well, well. Looks like our search is over. Eh, Damien?"

The boy next to her also pointed his sword in Ash's direction and said, "I believe you're right Lucie. So what do you propose we do to him Lilith?"

The second girl pointed her sword in Ash's direction and replied to her brother's question, "I am feeling a little bit hungry for blood, so I propose we eat him, raw and fresh."

Ash smirked and said, "We'll just see about that." He drew a kunai knife from the pouch on his right leg and concentrated really hard, drawing every bit of red chakra he had; this began to change the kunai into a long black sword with a dragon's head at the tip with its mouth wide open. Ash said to his opponents, "This is the black dragon sword. Once the tip is driven through you the sword sucks your soul into the blade. So what do you want to do? Fight and lose your souls, or leave and keep your freedom?"

Lucie put her sword into the scabbard on her back, growled in realization, "He's right, let's go before we make a mockery of our village." She stopped, looked back over her shoulder at Ash and said, "We're going, but we'll be back sooner than you think."

Ash roared back at her, "OH SHUT UP!! YOU'RE ALL A BUNCH OF COWARDS!!" He picked a shuriken out of the holster on his left leg and flung it at the shinobi, who vanished in front of him. He growled, took a deep breath and turned to MOMO and said, "Well I'll see you later at the festival."

"Okay." MOMO smiled as she turned and went back to her apartment to tell Shion that Ash was okay with the fact that she was only half human.

---

Shion was busy trying to pick out a kimono to wear to the festival, as was Miyuki, KOS-MOS and T-elos were busy picking out holographic outfits, when MOMO walked in. She ran into another room and activated a communication screen and typed in the access code for her mother, Juli Mizrahi. The screen came on and a woman appeared on the screen and said, "MOMO, how are you doing today?"

"Hi Mommy, I'm fine." MOMO replied, "Life here in the Village is simply amazing. We're having a Song and Dance Festival tomorrow. I was hoping that you would want to come here, that is if you're not too busy at the council."

Juli pondered this for a moment before she came to her conclusion. She smiled and said, "Well since you asked me so nicely, I'll take off tomorrow and the day after so I can spend time with you and meet this boy you've told me so much about."

"Mommy, all I have to ask you, is not to embarrass me tomorrow." MOMO pleaded, "Please."

Juli just giggled and said, "I had a feeling that you'd come to this age where you would ask me not to embarrass you. I just didn't think it would be this soon."

"You'll just have to see the boy I told you about to see why I asked you not to make me look silly." MOMO said.

A knock on the door put the conversation to an end. "I gotta go Mommy, I love you." MOMO giggled.

"Bye sweetie, I love you too." Juli replied as the screen went blank.

"MOMO, it's Shion, have you picked out what you wanted to wear?" Shion asked from the other side of the door.

"I have." MOMO answered. She said in a soft whisper, "Mystic powers, grant me a miracle." A ring of green energy swirled around her and a red kimono with pink floral designs on them materialized on her. Her cap turned into a white ribbon with a pink corsage fastening both ends together.

Shion opened the door and gasped in awe at MOMO's beautiful appearance and said, "Where'd you come up with an amazing dress like that? It looks beautiful."

MOMO just smiled and said, "This old thing? I've had it forever." She tucked away a wand and made sure that Shion couldn't see it.

"It's amazing." Shion said. "Ash is gonna love it."

MOMO giggled, "Yeah, I hope so." MOMO took off her kimono and put it on a hanger put on a set of floral patterned pajamas and went to bed awaiting the surprises that the next day would bring.


	12. The Sound of Darkness: Pt 2

Ash had already picked out the best looking robe he could find. It was a cheap robe, but it was guaranteed by Jiraiya to last longer than most of the robes that everyone else at the Song and Dance Festival, "But what if it doesn't fit?" Ash asked.

"Then you use chakra to make it fit the way you want." Jiraiya said, "You see I made this with a special chakra thread that adapts to your body's unique figure."

"Nice job of turning a ninja tool into a fashion statement, Jiraiya." Jiraiya turned to see a tall, blonde, brown-eyed woman with a purple, diamond shaped mark on her head between her eyes. She was wearing a green robe with a red circle with the Japanese symbol for gamble on her back.

"Oh, Tsunade," Jiraiya said, "nice to see you again."

"Hey, aren't you forgetting me?" A younger woman with black hair came from behind Tsunade. She was wearing black heals and a purple kimono.

"How could I forget you, Shizune?" Jiraiya replied, "So have you met Naruto's new friend yet?"

"We've only heard about him." Tsunade answered.

"I can say the same about you Lady Hokage." Ash said. He bowed in respect to the Hokage and said, "My name is Ash Ketchum. It's an honor to meet you."

"I am honored to meet one as greatly known as you. My name as you would probably know, is Tsunade. I have heard of you through all of the articles in the news that you are the best of the best." Tsunade said.

"Wow," Naruto said (he had been watching Ash choose the special chakra robe), "so what your saying is that you're a fan of Ash's?"

"Well actually, I only wanted to meet you to see whether or not the rumors about Ash were true." Tsunade said. "I was actually expecting for you to be a little taller. But I guess I was hoping a little too much."

"Yeah Granny-Tsunade." Naruto said. He often called Tsunade, granny, because of her true age, which was early to, mid-fifties; in order to make her mad, and it often worked. "You ought to be a little less of a gambler. After all, you are the Fifth Hokage and you can't gamble, or drink."

"Naruto," Tsunade said clenching her fists, "shut up. I know the restrictions of being Hokage are."

Naruto merely trembled, "Hold those fists at your sides Granny-Tsunade."

Ash took out a total of fifty dollars and said, "Hey, Jiraiya, will this be enough to pay for this chakra thread robe?"

Jiraiya looked at the money and said, "No, I insist that you keep your money. The robe is yours to keep. And don't worry about its fiber optic integrity, it can withstand a wild animal attack and it's also able to protect your body from Ninjutsu, a shuriken, a kunai, and a katana used in battle. The reason being is because even though it's light and made of chakra thread and it's as hard as steel. It won't age, it won't be worn ragged in battle, and it won't disintegrate."

Ash was awe struck and said, "Thanks Jiraiya I'll enjoy wearing it at the festival."

"No problem," Jiraiya said, "only the best for one as great as you." Ash headed back to his apartment along with Naruto while Jiraiya stayed behind and asked Tsunade, "So, do you want to go to the festival with me?"

Tsunade looked at Jiraiya and said, "No thanks Jiraiya, I have a lot of papers to sort out."

Jiraiya groaned and said, "Oh well, looks like I'm going to go without a date."

Shizune looked at Jiraiya with great sympathy and said, "Well if I'm not asking too much of you, would you like to go with me to the festival?"

Jiraiya looked at Tsunade and asked, "Well Tsunade, would that be okay with you? I mean I have to ask you if it's okay. Shizune is your attendant after all."

Tsunade was in deep thought. But she didn't take too long to come to come to her conclusion, "Why not?" She shrugged, "Shizune, I have no problem with you going to the festival with Jiraiya."

The two were amazed at this and thanked Tsunade excitedly and headed off making a few plans for what they would do that night.

---

Ash headed to his room took a quick shower and put on the traditional robe that Jiraiya had made for him and activated the robe's chakra powered adaptations and the robe fit him like a glove. "Wow this robe is amazing," Ash, grinned, "I feel as though it were made for me. I guess Jiraiya knew what he was doing when he made this robe."

He looked at his clock 7:30, He used one of the jutsu that he developed on his own, "Ino, I, Tatsu, Mi, Tora, Saru. Ninja Art: Shadow Portal Jutsu!" An inky black portal opened in front of him and he walked through and reappeared in front of the entrance of the apartment where MOMO and her friends lived and walked through the doors and walked up to the front desk and asked the lady standing behind it, "Where can I find the room for a Shion Uzuki?"

The lady behind the desk looked at an open book said, "She's sharing a room with a few other girls on the fourth floor in the third room on the left."

"Thank you," Ash said. He looked at the clock behind the desk, 7:40. He headed up the stairs to the fourth floor, headed to room 405, and knocked on the door.

"Who is it?" Shion asked from the other side of the door.

"Shion, it's me," Ash said, "I'm here to pick up MOMO and take her to the festival."

"All right." Shion said, looking at her clock, it was 8:00 sharp. "MOMO," She knocked on the door of MOMO's room, "Ash is here to pick you up."

"Wow," MOMO said, "Ash really meant that he'd pick me up at 8:00." She put on her dress and headed to the door of the apartment and Shion opened the door revealing Ash in a deep blue robe with a yellow dragon among black thorns chasing a red tiger, and on the back there was the Japanese character, rai; meaning thunder.

Ash stared in disbelief at MOMO's beautiful floral patterned kimono. "All right," Ash giggled, "who are you and what did you do to my girlfriend?"

"Well I'd like to ask that same question to you." MOMO giggled playfully.

"Well before we get too deep into the conversation at hand," Ash said, "let's go to the festival. I think we'll finish it up on the way."

---

The festival was all that Ash had expected and more. "Wow, this is way better than the Millennium Festival." He said thinking back to the seven days that a rare celestial object known as the Millennium Comet appeared in the sky awakening the ancient pokemon, Jirachi, this led Ash and his friends to a place known as Farina where Jirachi slept for one thousand years and stayed awake for seven whole days and on the seventh day, Jirachi would open it's true eye and gather the comet's energy and replenish Farina for the next Millennium.

"I've heard of that event," MOMO said, "It sounds like a lot of fun."

"It is fun." Ash replied, "There's fun rides, good food, great games, and a few shows."

"I wish I could see it." MOMO said, placing her head on Ash's shoulder.

"See what, MOMO?" Asked a voice from behind.

Ash and MOMO turned around and saw a woman with black hair, brown eyes, a purple kimono and a purple ribbon in her hair. "Mommy." MOMO said as she ran and hugged her.

Ash just smiled, and watched the reunion of mother and daughter and he thought about his own mother. The woman looked over her daughter's shoulder and said, "You must be Ash." The boy nodded, "I'm Juli Mizrahi, MOMO's mother, it's a pleasure to meet you."

"The same to you, ma'am." Ash said. They all walked through the crowd together and talked about where they were from. Ash of course only talked about his travels throughout the Pokemon world starting with the beginning of his journey at Pallet town, and ending with his second attempt at the Battle Pyramid. "And I found out about the Hidden Leaf Village and headed here to train." He said as Juli and MOMO gazed in awe. "I never knew that I'd find out about my origin from anyone here."

He turned the conversation over to MOMO and her mother who described a world in the far distant future and the never ending battle against the UTIC organization and strange beings called the Gnosis that destroyed any human being they touched. "I know that it sounds a little strange to you but it's all one hundred percent true." Juli said as Ash began to roll his eyes.

"Ash my mommy is telling the truth," MOMO said defending her mother, "You have to believe us."

"I'm trying to but it just seems a little too far fetched to be true." Ash said, "But I do believe some where in my gut that tells me that you're telling the truth."

MOMO and Juli understood about Ash's misunderstanding and disbelief of their story, but he didn't seem to be paying any attention to them because he seemed to be quite interested in something going on behind them. Naruto was with an ever reddening with embarrassment Hinata Hyuga. She was in a purple kimono with a cherry blossom her hair. Naruto was dressed in an orange and black robe with a fox in a burning inferno. Ash looked to his left and saw Team Rocket selling charms and other things trying to raise enough money to afford some food. They didn't notice Ash until he transformed into a pikachu and hopped onto the counter.

James was the first person to notice this. "Hey look," He said pointing at what he thought was the real Pikachu.

Meowth looked and said, "It's dat twoip's Pikachu."

Jessie looked at the Pikachu and said, "Let's…"

Before she could finish the Pikachu transformed back into Ash. "You three never learn." He said.

"Gah!" James gasped, "It's the twerp."

"Dat's betta den my costumes." Meowth said.

"Maybe he should be part of Team Rocket." Jessie said under her breath.

"So I take it that you know these three?" MOMO asked.

Ash nodded. "Yeah these are the creeps who are always trying to steal Pikachu from me."

"Oh, and I guess that they've failed for all of these years?" Juli asked.

"Yeah," Ash said. "Their plans seem to just pop out of no where and catch me off guard. But I always find a way out and stop them."

"So, why aren't they trying to capture Pikachu now?" MOMO asked.

"They're probably trying to earn some money for a trip out of the village." Ash said grinning. "Because I know that they're flat broke."

That made Jessie angry. She was going to jump over the counter and throttle Ash, but James had to stop her before she woke man they worked for. Meowth stood up on the counter and asked, "So twoi… I mean potential customer, what can we do for youse?"

MOMO looked at Ash and said, "I am feeling a little hungry."

Ash said, "Same here." He looked at Meowth, "So I take it you don't wanna sell food to the kid your sure to try and steal his Pikachu from, right?"

Meowth said, "Yeah youse do have a point dere." He looked and said, "How 'bout youse take a bite out of some ramen at Ichiraku? Dey just so happen to have a discount for prefoid customers tonight."

"Well I do have a little bit of an urge to eat ramen until I can't anymore." Ash said, "What about you MOMO?"

"I think that's a great idea." MOMO said. Her mother nodded in agreement.

"Well," Ash said, "what're we waiting for?" And with that the three headed to the ramen shop and ordered the Ketchum Special, a favorite of the entire Village. MOMO and Juli both thought Ash made the right choice and they were right.

---

At the edge of the Village, Damien, Lilith, and Lucie were conversing with a member of the malevolent Hidden Sound Village. "So, are you prepped and ready for your mission?"

Lucie acknowledged this, insultingly, "Duh. All we have to do is succeed where you failed."

The sound ninja grabbed a kunai but he stopped when he felt the point of Damien's blood covered sword nearly piercing his neck. "We don't want any trouble. So put that little toy away before you poke someone's eye out with it."

The sound ninja released his grip on the kunai put his back to his associates and said, "Be careful, don't jinx windows of opportunity that fate may provide you with. Remember that you're fighting against a Jinchuuriki of great and terrible power. So watch the way you act."

"Why should we?" Lilith asked, "Our little Jinchuuriki is just a 13 year old kid who just comes up with some mediocre jutsu. I've seen them in action and they are not what you'd call dangerous."

"That's what you think." The sound ninja said turning to face them with whatever kind of dignity he had left, "Orochimaru fought the boy recently and he's just began to recover from the severe burns of the Tempest Fire Jutsu and he is still in pain."

"Well that's his problem." Damien said.

"It'll be your problem too if you fail." The sound ninja retaliated.

"Says who?" Damien questioned.

"Says Kabuto Yakushi." The ninja exploded in a cloud of white smoke revealing a boy around 13 years of age. He was wearing a lavender shirt, purple shorts, a purple headband with a metal plate in the center and a musical note in the middle, and a pair of glasses and white hair done up in a ponytail. His name (as mentioned earlier,) was Kabuto Yakushi the second in command of the Hidden Sound Village and former member of the ANBU Black Ops Medical Corps.

"Well," Lucie said dreamy eyed, "so you're the one who has been giving us the orders."

"Yeah," Kabuto sneered, "and you'd better follow them or you'll end up like Orochimaru is right now. He's been burning and yowling in pain for three weeks and still needs two shots of anesthesia in order to get him to sleep. That's how you'll end up if you're not careful."

"Understood." The Shadow Ninja said in unison. As they went into the village and Kabuto left to tend to the condition of Orochimaru.

---

Juli had been talking to MOMO while Ash was looking for a prize to win for MOMO and found a stand with a lot of stuffed animals that looked odd but Ash figured the MOMO would like it regardless of what she thought of it. "Come on kid step right up and win a prize for the one closest to you. First three tosses are free."

Ash couldn't refuse a challenge and grabbed one of the three rubber balls. "You're lookin' at a kid who makes living out of things like this."

"Why, are you a baseball player?" The man behind the counter asked.

"Nope," Ash replied, "but my only dream, is to be the world's greatest Pokemon Master."

"An honorable title, or so I'm told." The man said. Ash tossed the ball and knocked down a stack of glass bottles and took the second ball and knocked down the second stack and then the third. When the man saw this, his jaw dropped. He looked at Ash and said, "You're the first person I've seen to ever knock down all three stacks in a row. And to show you that I wish you luck, here you go." He handed Ash a nicely made doll that looked like a clown at first glance. Before Ash left, the man asked him, "By the way kid what's your name?"

"My name is Ash Ketchum, I'm a pokemon trainer from Pallet Town." Ash said modestly.

"Well steam me up and call me a dumpling, I'm a huge fan of yours." The man said to Ash, "Top 16 in the Kanto region, Winner of the Orange League, and top 8 in both Johto and Hoenn Leagues. And now I hear all of this good stuff about you beating the tar out of the Battle Frontier, that's pretty impressive if I do say so myself."

"I'll agree with you there." Ash said modestly. "Well I'll be seein' ya."

"Good luck." The man replied as Ash ran toward MOMO.

Ash came up to MOMO and handed her the doll. MOMO looked at the doll and then at Ash and said, "This is a cute doll, thank you." She kissed him out the cheek causing him to blush deep beet red.

Ash began to shake uncontrollably and his teeth began to chatter. It took him five minutes to get a hold of himself to where he could talk without his teeth beginning to chatter. "No problem." He said slightly still embarrassed from the fact that he froze up in front of MOMO's mother like he did. _Man,_ He thought, _I could really use one of Pikachu's thunderbolts right about now._ He didn't expect MOMO's reaction to be that strong. He immediately apologized, "Sorry, I didn't expect MOMO to kiss me. I only expected a hug."

"Sorry that I caught you 'off guard'" MOMO apologized. "The gift just was really nice, I'll treasure it for as long as I live."

---

On the top of a nearby building, Lucie, Damien, and Lilith watched Ash's every move. "Ugh," Damien said giving a sick look, "I think I'm gonna be sick."

"Oh shut up, Damien," Lucie said, hitting her brother in the head, "you are so immature. I'm just ticked that Ash chose a girl like MOMO over me. I mean she just doesn't look like the type of girl that a boy whose father was a heartless ruler of a subterranean village. He should be ruthless and black hearted but he's not. I wonder why?"

"Maybe he took after his mother?" Lilith asked. "That maybe the reason why he isn't heartless and evil."

"But I see a way to get him out of the picture," Damien said with a wicked looking grin on his face, "I'll just use a demonic puppet jutsu on that doll that little runt gave his girlfriend. This'll bring some fun into this boring evening. I just need to get in close enough to use my technique." He stood up and said, "Wish me luck." And like a flash, he was gone.

---

Damien appeared in the mouth of an alley just five feet away from MOMO and Ash, MOMO's mother Juli had gone back to her own time on a business call apparently there had been an issue with the Vector Corporation and a new experiment that they'd been working on for the past five months and her assistance was needed immediately. But that didn't stop Ash from having a good time with MOMO, they enjoyed the festival, they danced whenever they could and they took part in some of the games that were held in during such festivities and they had the time of their lives. However later in the evening MOMO noticed something strange about the doll Ash had given her. Its eyes changed from blue to an angry red and had grown in size and had come to life. MOMO asked Ash what he did to the doll and his reply was, "The only thing I did to that doll was give it to you I don't know what happened to it."

"Well someone must have done something to make it change like that." MOMO said, "I mean dolls don't come to life like that unless they were taken over by a demon or…"

"Or taken over by the effect of a Ninjutsu." Ash said, "I think that those creeps we saw yesterday might have something to do with this."

"How?" MOMO asked.

"Well they dressed like they would do something in this." Ash said, "I also didn't felt that they were evil enough to try something like this." A scream of terror broke Ash's train of thought.

"Ash I think that was Ino." MOMO said.

"I think you're right." Ash agreed. He grabbed MOMO's arm and ran to where the scream came from. They saw Jr. shooting into an alley, with both of his pistols blazing. Ino Yamanaka was nowhere to be found. "Jr., where's Ino?"

"Something dragged her into the alley," Jr. said.

"Sounds like that doll you gave me is on the prowl." MOMO whispered to Ash.

"It would sound like you're right." Ash whispered in agreement.

"Say what?" Jr. questioned, "What the heck are you two whispering about?"

Before Ash could answer him Naruto and Sasuke came running up to him. "Ash," Naruto said, "a stuffed rabbit came to life and grabbed Hinata and Sakura and took them off into an alley."

"Yeah and that's not the half of it," Sasuke said, "Tenten, Temari, Shion, Miyuki, and all of the girls in the village had the same thing happen to them."

"I'm starting to think that those Shadow Ninja I saw yesterday have something to do with this." Ash said.

"Well, the only girls who haven't been kidnapped Kurenai Sensei and Shizune." Neji said as he came out of the shadows.

"Let's not forget about Granny Tsunade, and May." Naruto said.

"Great," Ash groaned, "all right guys, this I believe is classified as an S-rank search and rescue mission. We need all available Gennin as well as Jonin, and Chunin level ninja in the village who weren't kidnapped to go through with this."

"But what if no one wants to go through with this?" Gaara said as he appeared from a cloud of sand.

"In that case, tell them to do that their dates lives are at stake. Half of the girls who were abducted must have been single so search the outskirts last and keep an eye out for any Sound Ninja, I'm positive that three Shadow Village Shinobi are not enough to pull something off without having a second objective, which in this case would be to cover up any invasion by the Hidden sound Village."

"Right," Sasuke said, "that means we'll alert the Jonin level Shinobi to guard any and all entrances to the village."

"Yeah and all of the Gennin and Chunin oughta keep their eyes open for all of these girls incase any of the girls who were kidnapped turn up." Kankuro suggested.

"Good," Ash said as he distributed the radios among the group. "Now keep in touch. We don't want the kidnappers to find us without any point of contact. Let's go."

* * *

**Thank God that I'm finished with that. This is the longest thing I've ever written/typed in my life. I hope you guys liked it. Continue to do what you, the readers do best Read and Review.**


	13. The Sound of Darkness: Pt 3

MOMO followed closely behind Ash as they walked through the empty streets of the village, "Ash," MOMO whimpered clutching her boyfriend's arm, "I'm scared. I don't want to end up being kidnapped like Ino and the others."

"Well stop worrying," Ash said keeping his eyes in front of him, "because I'm not going to let that happen to you. I promise."

MOMO did her best to believe Ash, but she couldn't help but think that they were being followed. She could feel the hair on the back of her neck stand on end; the air around her was filled with an almost crackly feeling. It was so hard for her to separate fear from rational thinking in this kind of situation and she could hardly find any way of calming herself down.

"MOMO," Ash said, "stop squeezing so hard, you're cutting off the circulation to my arm." Feeling the size of the main blood vein to Ash's arm grow and pop out MOMO released her grip on her friend's arm. A sound from a nearby alley startled her and caused her to scream and tighten her grip on Ash's arm. Ash just laughed, "MOMO don't worry," He said, "its just Pikachu."

Pikachu hopped out of the alley and took its usual spot on Ash's shoulder. MOMO half laughed in embarrassment and petted Pikachu's head. "Sorry Pikachu, I was just afraid." She said.

"Pika, pika pi." Pikachu chirped.

MOMO laughed and kissed Pikachu's head and said, "Thank you."

"I think we'd better get back to our search." Ash said. In order for the search to go easier, Ash activated his Kekkei Genkai. He looked around and found, not the girls who'd been kidnapped, but the one who'd kidnapped them, the clown doll.

"I see the kidnapper." Ash said, "The only question is, where did he put those girls he took?"

"I think I can help," MOMO said, "I can neutralize it so you can find out who or what turned that innocent doll into the thing that kidnapped the girls at the Festival."

"Negative, MOMO," KOS-MOS said walking up behind the to of them, "the target will attack you before you can find it. It's sensing is strong enough to see you before you can se it."

"Then we'll do it the opposite," Ash suggested, "I'll neutralize it and you can find what turned it into the monster we're facing right now."

"Negative," KOS-MOS said again, "You'll be spotted before you can get within range."

"No I won't." Ash retaliated, "My bloodline trait will make it so I can't be found. Now let's stop thinking and let's start carrying out. You two get on top of that building and wait for my signal." Ash then disappeared into the alley with Pikachu still perched on Ash's shoulder.

"KOS-MOS," MOMO asked her friend, "what are the chances of Ash's plan being successful?"

"The chances of success are 200 to 1." KOS-MOS replied, "Ash will need a miracle to pull this off."

"What if you add the Eyes of Darkness to the probability?" MOMO asked.

"The probability is 10 to 1." KOS-MOS replied.

"I hope that one will be the outcome." MOMO said.

---

Ash crept through the alley toward the demonic doll. He still had his Kekkei Genkai activated and had armed himself his Black Dragon Sword, "This doll may not have a soul," He whispered to himself, "but if I can use my Shadow Puppet Jutsu on it, I may be able to find the one who turned it into a monster."

The doll was chuckling madly as it tried to seek out anything to take to its master, Damien. Until it turned around Ash stayed hidden from view, when it did Ash crept closer until he was within striking distance. When he got into close range he tightened the grip in his sword and waited for the creature to turn in his direction and attacked with all of his strength. The doll clawed Ash and tried to wound him, but Ash's robe didn't rip when the doll's sword-like claws tried to penetrate the robe's thickly bound chakra thread. Ash had no choice but to use Omninecros' lethal gift, black chakra.

The energy leaked out of the mark on his head and blanketed him in a pitch-black silhouette that caused his body to transform into a dragon-like creature. "Now it's monster versus monster." He said in an almost split voice, "Show me what you can do, you overgrown freak." Ash seemed to have gotten larger, his hands became claws, his hair grew long and unruly, his teeth grew long and razor sharp, and his eyes turned blood red with black soulless pits for pupils. He crouched on all fours and growled threateningly, as he moved into striking position.

He leapt at the doll and tore through the dolls skin, but the doll didn't stop, it pinned Ash to the ground with one hand. However the black chakra ate away at the doll's arm freeing himself up to fight against the doll, but the doll's arm regenerated to the state it was in before it had been eaten off. Ash's exposed arm had been torn open by the creature's claws but it had healed as soon as the beast's claws had been removed from the broken skin. Ash felt himself being blinded by the darkness of the demon's chakra. But he couldn't let himself give into the foul temptations. He began over riding the black chakra with plenty of red chakra that healed his wounds slower than black chakra and lifted the clouded veil from his eyes as well as made him go into a slightly more manageable state of mind. He had no choice but to use his Ninjutsu, "All right," he growled, "take this. Tatsu, Mi, Saru, Inu, Hitsuji, Mi, Tora; Fire Style: Solar Flare Jutsu!" When he exhaled he spat out a spiraling stream of hot blue flame at the beast's head.

As he did, the doll moved its head out of the way of the flames. _Of course,_ Ash thought, _the head's its weak point. I think that I can throw a charm at its head and stun it. That might paralyze it long enough for me to use my Shadow Puppet Jutsu to track down the one who turned my gift to MOMO into this demonic figure in front of me._ "Have a taste of this you creep." He said pulling out from his sleeve what looked like a paper bomb, the ninja's best explosive weapon in the field, but it had the lettering of a paralysis charm on it. His shadow was now overlapping the dolls shadow, and it couldn't move. He also pulled out a spool of chakra thread from his sleeve, tied it to the charm, and threw it at the demon's head.

Once the charm was stuck to the doll's head, it couldn't even twitch. "Got you right where I want you." Ash chuckled. He got close enough to use his shadow puppetry and linked the shadow of the doll and then sent out a trail, which lead to the one who the one who was controlling the doll. He used his Kekkei Genkai, and followed the trail and found Damien, "I had a feeling it would be the lowest on the branch of the dark tree that is the Hidden Shadow Village." He growled.

He then got a fix on Damien and released the Shadow Puppet Jutsu. He jumped back and used the Solar Flare Jutsu again. This time it hit and the doll popped back to the state it was in before the kidnapping. Ash picked the doll up and put it into his backpack so he could give it to MOMO. But he whistled loudly and waited as Pikachu hopped out of the alley and perched on Ash's shoulder like always. Ash then turned and headed to wear he located Damien. _When I get my hands on that shadow-loving runt, _Ash thought, _I'll give him what he deserves._

Ash turned the corner and found where Damien was. He was at least twenty feet behind the Gothic ninja so he tried to stay as quiet as possible so he could catch Damien off guard. He took out a bag of food pills, these were special weapons that proved useful to all shinobi; some of these pills were for healing purposes, some were for more stamina, some were made for increasing the strength of the one who ate them. But these pills were made special by the Inuzuka clan, they were to be used in sync with the Ninja Art of Beast Mimicry: All Fours Jutsu, Kiba had given them to Ash as a sign of friendship. Ash had been saving them for when he needed them the most.

He crept up behind Damien hidden from all of the Shadow Ninja's means of sensory. Damien couldn't tell whether or not his enemies had obliterated his puppet. Ash was creeping up slowly behind Damien and made it to where he could scare the black clothed rogue. Ash grabbed Damien's sword by the handle and pulled it away from him and poked the tip of the blade into Damien's back. "Hold it right there and don't move you shadow-loving little twerp." Ash said as he grabbed Damien's shirt collar. "Now you're going to tell where that 'reject from the black lagoon' took those girls from the festival. If you don't then I'll force the answer out of you."

* * *

**This is the first cliffhanger that I've done since Chapter 7 so I'll leave you guessing until I get to update this story, but I think you guys should submit some ideas that can help me conclude this mini saga. Until then R&R.**


	14. The Sound of Darkness: Pt 4

Ash walked to where KOS-MOS and MOMO were, dragging Damien, whom he'd immobilized with his Shadow Puppet Jutsu, behind him. MOMO looked in the direction that Ash was coming from and thought, _Look at what the cat dragged in._

Damien's eyes were closed; the butt of his own sword had knocked him outs. Ash looked and said, "This wasn't as easy as it may look. I had to get rid of that demon," He took the doll out of his backpack and handed it to MOMO, "I hope it's not too badly damaged." He said as he handed it to the girl he loved.

"It finally looks loveable again." MOMO said hugging it.

"Indeed," KOS-MOS said, "all traces of whatever turned this doll into a body of evil have been removed."

"Not quite all," Ash said, "the only trace of those factors is bound, gagged, and tied up behind me."

A cloud of sand swirled around in between them and Gaara appeared in front of Ash, "Did you find out where he hid the victims?"

"No," Ash said, "I didn't get a chance to. He fainted when I snuck up on him. Right buddy." He asked Pikachu.

"Pika, pika." Chirped the creature.

Gaara looked at Pikachu and said, "I'll take your word for it."

"And now." Ash turned to Damien who was just now waking up. He grabbed Damien's sword and pinned the Shadow Ninja up against the wall. "Where did you and your team mates hide those girls from the festival?"

"What're you going to do to me if I don't tell you?" Damien questioned.

"Just wait until I put you in front of Jr." Ash said.

"Yeah," MOMO said, "he'll get all trigger happy and shoot you until there's nothing left."

"You're darn right about that." Jr. said as he stepped into the alley and pointed one of his pistols at him. "You're lucky that Ash is here, otherwise I'd shoot you right now."

"The only thing that would do," Damien retaliated, "is injure me badly. I can't be killed except by a member of my own clan."

"Guess who's holding the sword." Ash growled.

"I know," Damien said, "that's why I'm not talking badly. But you'll feel a little pain in the next few seconds." Ash felt a powerful surge of electricity go through his body. He couldn't stand it so he let the sword drop; before it hit the ground, it levitated and floated into Damien's hand. "Now I have the upper hand."

Sand looped around Damien's hand, "If you don't tell us where all of the kidnapped girls are," Gaara said with his eyes widening, "I'll destroy you."

"No, Gaara," Ash smirked, "let me do it." He stretched his hand out toward Damien and a giant, disgusting looking, hand came up from Damien's shadow and grabbed him. "Now," Ash warned his enemy, "tell me where you took those girls or I'll send you to your death. An eternity in the shadows ought to do."

"Oh, I'm so scared." Damien teased, "Not an eternity in some shadowy abyss. Anything, anything but that." He laughed mockingly at his captor.

"Keep laughing," Ash snarled, "and I'll kill you right here." He started curling his fingers into a fist and the hand that was holding Damien began to crush him. The Gothic ninja started to scream bloody murder because of the pain.

"Okay, okay," Damien screamed, "I'll speak! My sisters took them to the mountain of the Ho Kages!"

"I take it that's the entrance to the Village Hidden in the Shadows?" Ash asked.

"Yes!" Damien couldn't take the pain, "Now let me go! I can't take this kind of pain anymore."

Ash grinned and said, "As you wish." He swiped his hand to the direction of the wall of the alley. MOMO's jaw dropped. Ash turned and said, "Hey blame him, he said to let him go. He never said how he wanted me to let go of him."

"I guess that's remotely true." Jr. said.

"But," Ash said smiling slyly, "we have our heading. So away we go. To the Mountain of the Ho Kages."

---

Lilith and Lucie waited angrily in front of the entrance to the Village Hidden in the Shadows for their brother, Damien. "Ugh." Lucie groaned, "Did he get himself caught. He's always late and I can't understand why."

"Boys are always like this," Lilith said as she admired herself in a hand mirror, "that's why I like Ash more than Damien."

"Yeah," Lucie sighed, "people like him are the ones you just want to wait on for no reason. He's so handsome."

"And too old for you." Lilith smirked as she teased her little sister.

"Can I help it if I have good taste in older men." Lucie mocked.

Suddenly a threatening roar broke the through the air causing both kunoichi to drop down and cringe. They looked up at what was the eyehole for the face of the First Ho Kage that had been carved into the side of the mountain and saw nothing at first, but then they saw something move, out of the moonlight and into the shadows and were scared. "Did you see what I just saw?" Lilith asked.

"Yes." Lucie replied.

"Good, cause I didn't want to be called crazy." Lilith said.

"I wonder what the heck that was." Lucie said.

Kabuto Yakushi appeared from the shadows and said, "Your brother won't be regrouping with you tonight."

"That's easy to believe." Lilith muttered under her breath, "What happened to that little annoyance? Did he overeat at one of the concession stands?"

"No." Kabuto said with a tone of annoyance, "He drew the attention of Ash and his friends. He's still alive."

"What a waste of space." Lucie groaned, "I hope he's badly injured."

"He is." Kabuto said.

"I guess that will be sufficient." Lucie sighed. "If he'd died I'd have my only reason to smile."

"Well it looks like you have a reason two frown now." The shadow kunoichi wheeled around and saw Ash hanging upside-down with his Black Dragon Sword pointed at Kabuto. "I never would've thought that the members of my dad's side of the family would call on a nation so low as the Sound Village to help them with a lost cause like the destruction of the Leaf Village. I guess the ninja of my father's village are just cowards who can't fight their own battles."

Lucie grabbed her sword and flung it at Ash who dropped from the cave ceiling to the cave floor and performed a Transformation Jutsu. As the smoke cleared, he had changed into a red pokemon with two blue and red tentacles for arms, a bullet-shaped, helmet-like head with two wing-like ears on its head, the face looked like a light blue oval with a purple cat's eye stripe in between it's eyes. It had a purple jewel in the center of its chest, which gave it extraordinary abilities. Its waist was black and sleek. Its name was Deoxys, a pokemon from Outer Space. It spoke by sending out a loud bass toned vibration, it could change into four different forms to suit the situation, it could also regenerate if it lost a limb it grew back almost immediately.

Jr. and MOMO and the others who'd regrouped and met at the entrance to the catacombs were waiting a few meters away, hidden from the eyes of Kabuto, Lilith, and Lucie. Jr. let his jaw drop, "Dang, so that's a Deoxys."

Ash raised his head and sent a vibrating pulse in the direction of his enemies. Kabuto had to brace himself to keep from losing his balance, "Geez," he muttered, "this is one tricky shinobi. His technique appears to be based on his experience with pokemon. He's too much for these two kunoichi to handle." His hand began to glow as he readied to put his medical Ninjutsu to use.

Before Kabuto could move into position Ash morphed to Deoxys' speed form and charged at Kabuto and hit him with a powerful psychic blast to his chest. The force of the blast was so strong it knocked Kabuto off balance and sent him flying headlong out of the mountain and into the woods. Ash almost forgot that he had to deal with multiple enemies, by himself, before. But Ash didn't hesitate; he turned and changed morphed to Deoxys' defense form, called up a shield to block an attack from Lilith. This caught the kunoichi off guard; Ash used this opportunity to morph to Deoxys' attack form and projected a powerful psychic energy ball into Lilith, you have to admit this is cool. Lucie grabbed her sword and sliced clean through Ash's arm, she couldn't have guessed what happened next. Ash began wincing and his tentacle-shaped arms regenerated; he looked at Lucie and hit her with another psychic blast. He looked at Lilith, who was struggling to get to her feet, crossed his tentacles and charged at her, carrying both of them into a wall of the cave. The impact created enough of a dust cloud that Lilith couldn't see, put she saw a purple beam of light pass over her. She heard another vibrating pulse from her opponent and the cloud cleared, revealing a black psychic energy ball that hit her in her arm.

Ash began to feel the Transformation Jutsu wear off, he knew because it was becoming harder to maintain his current form, so he released himself from the form. He reverted back to his normal state and didn't feel tired at all; his Kekkei Genkai was to blame for this; so he performed another transformation, this time it was a giant, white and indigo (not purple) colored bird pokemon. It had small, indigo-colored, flaps on its back and hand-like wings. It let out a musical dry that pleased MOMO's ears, "That must be, Lugia: the Great Guardian of the Sea."

Ash had the advantage of size on his foes, but he was too big. He kept hitting his head on the cave ceiling and tripping; so he transformed into Mewtwo, a cat-like pokemon with intense psychic powers that Ash had met twice (his memory was erased after their first meeting) since he'd been a pokemon trainer. Unlike Deoxys, he could use telekinesis to communicate with everyone he came in contact with. "Well," He said as he looked himself over, "I like this form. I can't believe I'm actually seeing this again."

"Are you gonna flatter yourself all day?" Lucie asked as she and her sister readied themselves for battle.

"Or are you gonna fight us?" Lilith asked.

Ash stayed silent and pointed one of his hands at Lucie and put her under his control. Using Mewtwo's psychic abilities, Ash lifted Lucie into the air and flung her at Lilith, knocking them both to their knees. "Mewtwo's abilities are actually not taking their toll on me." Ash said, "Even though it can't regenerate like Deoxys, Mewtwo's form is easier to maintain without being rejected."

Lilith tried to sneak up on Ash's blind spot, but she didn't count on him being able to sense her from all directions. He whipped his enemy out of the eyehole of the First Ho Kage with his tail, "Well, that's one down," he turned his head toward Lucie and his eyes widened and started to glow bright blue, "now just one more and it's all over." He reached his hand out toward Lucie and swiftly pointed to the direction of the eyehole that he'd whipped Lilith out through, all of a sudden Lucie shot out through the opening. Ash crouched and rocketed after his foe building up energy in his hands until he couldn't build any more. When he touched the ground outside, he threw the compressed energy at the first thing he sensed, which was Kabuto, the blast hit the medical ninja and knocked him through two trees and into one. Ash transformed into another, more agile, psychic pokemon, a blue, black, and yellow dog-like pokemon named Lucario; like Mewtwo, Lucario used telekinesis to communicate with humans. "Lucario's form actually handles easier than Mewtwo and Deoxys." He quickly noted, "It's not even trying to reject me. Now to find where those three idiots are." He closed his eyes and focused until he could the aura inside of his enemies. "There you are." He declared as he darted into the woods with his eyes still tightly shut.

---

MOMO and the others were watching from the eyehole of the First Ho Kage gazing in awe at the battle when Naruto piped up, "Hey, shouldn't we be looking for the girls who were kidnapped?"

"I nearly forgot." Jr. said, "Let's go." They all headed off in search of the kidnapped girls.

---

Ash was having a hard time finding Lucie, his current target, "Let's see," he said, "now where are you?"

Lucie was keeping still, trying to keep Ash from finding her. _If he finds me,_ she thought, _who knows what'll happen._

She was so focused on hiding from Ash that she failed to notice him landing on the tree opposite from her. He looked all around until he found her. He hopped onto the branch above him and concentrated energy into the palms of his hands and threw the energy in Lucie's direction. She never saw it coming; the energy ball hit the tree causing her to jump out of the tree making her vulnerable to a hit from Ash. Lucie was launched through a tree and onto her face.

Ash transformed into Duskull, a ghost type pokemon who could haunt even the strongest pokemon into delirium, and disappeared, "Dusk skull skull dusk skull (Now to have some fun)."

Lucie got up and dusted herself off and looked around to see where Ash would attack, "All right Ash," she called out as she grabbed her sword, "come out so I can cleave you into nothing."

Ash couldn't think straight in Duskull's form, so he transformed into the legendary pokemon Rayquaza and caught his opponent with a powerful hyperbeam. Lucie couldn't find anyway to dodge the powerful attack so she used her sword to absorb most of the attack, but she only left herself in the dust by staying on the ground. Ash's next attack was thunder, which blasted Lucie away and demolished the ground beneath her feet. "Whoa," she gasped, "that almost destroyed me." She looked up in the sky and saw Ash charging straight for her. She jumped to the side but got cut by one of Ash's claws. She couldn't run anymore, so Ash swooped down and threw Lucie into a tree and knocked her out. He transformed back into Lucario and smiled at his catch, "That's one down now to find the other two." He said as he darted off into the forest.

---

Lilith was busy laying out traps to slow Ash down; she was just finishing her job camouflaging a trap hole she dug before she went to hide from him. As if on cue, Ash approached the clearing where Lilith was lying in wait. He stopped a few meters from the edge of the clearing and noticed the traps that his opponent had set just for him. "Those traps are just too easy to notice." He scoffed, "Team Rocket lays better traps than she does. But at least she had enough sense to lay traps, unlike that other one. I should have a little fun with this. Shadow Clone Jutsu." Ash produced a solid replica of himself so he could catch Lilith off guard, "Now remember," He instructed the clone, "you're just there to weaken her down and distract her, use the traps, if you can, to help you." The clone nodded and darted into the clearing, avoiding the traps that had been set for the real Ash.

Lilith was surprised to see that none of the traps had been set off, "No way, I thought that he'd fall for the first trap," she groaned, "I guess that he's more resourceful than I thought. I really underestimated him." She was so overwhelmed that she didn't notice that the fake Ash turned in her direction and started walking toward her, "That's it," she whispered, "just a little closer. If the pitfall gets you, then I will."

The clone had cast a Genjutsu, a powerful illusion that can confuse the enemy into falling into a trap. Lilith was watching the being that she believed was her enemy, of whom she had a massive crush on, as he approached her; she was hoping that Ash would set off none of the traps. The next thing she saw was the illusionary figure she thought was Ash fall into the pitfall that had been set; Lilith screamed and leaped out of the bushes and the illusion was broken. When the illusion faded away, Lilith realized that she had fallen for an illusion and fell into the pit that she'd seen in the illusion and felt really stupid, "I just had to develop feelings for a guy who uses my worst fears to throw me down."

Ash peered into the pit grinning from ear to ear, "You know," he snickered slyly, "you're not really that smart. You should have seen that in your delirium. So what happened, what blinded you?"

"I can't believe I actually had feelings for you." Lilith shouted angrily. Her eyes glowed a fiery red and she started growling, "I can't believe I actually had a crush on a childish little fool like you." Her body began to change until it looked more like a cat and she crawled up the side of the pit, "Know this," she roared, "I'll kill you in the blink of an eye." She rocketed at Ash and clawed him; but she wound up with a fake. The clone disappeared and the real Ash appeared with his curse mark fully activated; wings had sprouted out of his back, his hair had grown long and tangled, his teeth had become long and sharp like fangs, his hands had become claws, and he'd grown a long tail with a spike at the end.

Ash glared at Lilith and his curse mark had started to glow red and black chakra began flowing out of his mouth and started to engulf his body. His eyes glowed blood red and his skin turned black making him more of a challenge to see in the dark. "You think that a whelp like you can kill me?" He growled, "Hah, you know not where you tread, Lilith. I can take you out with one hand behind my back. Now enough talk," He powered up so quickly, it sent a shockwave through the surrounding forest, "it's time to end this." He shot off at Lilith and nearly dug his claws into her; sadly for Ash, Lilith jumped out of the way and clawed into Ash's side. He hit the grounded and his wound healed instantly. Lilith grabbed her sword and tried to stab Ash, only to be knocked into a tree by a second tail that had just sprouted. He took in a massive amount of air and let loose a searing hot stream of fire which burned everything in its path.

Lilith leapt up into a tree behind her and waited for the perfect time to strike at her foe. Before she could even think of an attack plan, Ash disappeared and punched Lilith in her stomach, knocking her onto the branch of another tree. She clutched her stomach and changed back to her human form and unleashed her special technique, "Ninja Art: Shadow Iron Maiden." A large cage formed around Ash and closed him in. "Hopefully those spikes should end this for me." She said, "I just hope that I can release enough energy to finish him off. That last punch must've drained my chakra to the point where I can barely handle conjuring the shadow iron maiden." She couldn't hold the jutsu at suitable level to keep Ash ensnared, so she had to release her hold on him.

As soon as Ash was free, he used his most powerful technique, "Fire Style: Tempest Inferno." He inhaled deeply and shot a stream of white, searing flame at Lilith burning her leg. She fell to the ground screaming in pain from the burn. Ash changed back to his human form and tried to seek out Kabuto, but to no avail; Kabuto had fled out of the village and back to Orochimaru while Ash was busy fighting Lilith and Lucie. "Oh well," Ash said to himself, "I guess I should be happy with what I've all ready done. Now to get Lilith all healed up."

Ash jumped from where he was, and landed near the burned Shadow Konoichi. Lilith looked at the boy and said, "You've beaten me, and now you're probably gonna kill me."

"No," Ash said, "I'm actually gonna heal your wound. Ice Style: Antarctic Gale." He unleashed a freezing cold wind, which cooled Lilith's leg.

"Why did you do that?" Lilith asked.

"Because," Ash said, "Like it or not, your still part of my family. And it's up to me as the heir to the Kage of the Village Hidden in the Shadows to protect the members of that village and those closest to me."

"I guess you're right." Lilith said getting up and dusting herself off. "That's what my father told me about being a leader, you must protect those you care about the most, no matter what the circumstances may be."

"Your dad sounds like a true leader." Ash said. "And who knows, I may think about giving you a little reward, like a dance at the festival. That is if you'll release those girls you kidnapped."

"It's a little late for that," Naruto said as he entered the clearing, "we all ready freed the girls and sent them back to the festival."

"Now, Ash." Lilith said, "You and I have one dance that we must share in order to close our deal. That is, if MOMO doesn't have any objections."

"I guess I have no choice." MOMO said, "But when your dance is over, Ash and I have a dance that we need to finish." They all went back to the festival and had the time of their lives.


	15. Ultimate Battle: Man Vs Android Pt 1

The Dance Festival had ended and things had gone back to normal. The Hidden Shadow Village was to meet with Ash and Tsunade to discuss their ties with the Hidden Sound Village. MOMO, Lilith and Lucie had become friends after the festival and found out that they shared the same hobbies. Ash and Damien, however, had nothing in common; they had multiple flare ups and they fought with each other over who was better. When Damien's father heard about this all he could say was, "Ash's father and I were the exact same way toward each other. We never agreed about anything."

The rivalry between Ash and Naruto was also growing, but not as quickly. They'd been training in the same area since they'd first met and their skills were becoming equally matched. The rivalry of the two shinobi was aggravating one person, or should I say machine, T-elos. She was becoming irritated by Ash's growing power. The only thing that Ash could use from his curse mark was his chakra and his first tail, there was only one more thing he needed to learn, his cursed stage two form. He needed to have an intense fight with someone. T-elos took advantage of this factor and thought about fighting Ash.

Shion was busy doing some work on KOS-MOS when T-elos asked her, "Shion?"

"What is it T-elos?" Shion asked.

"How strong is Ash compared to me?" T-elos asked.

"Ash is at least three times as strong as you." KOS-MOS said turning to T-elos. "If there were a fight between you two, Ash would unlock his curse mark's second stage.

"I wonder what it looks like?" Shion asked. "His chakra control is unbelievable, and furthermore Ash can release enough energy to turn your own strength against you. If you aren't careful, his shadow'll catch you and he'll take control of you. But according to what MOMO's told me he's more powerful than you are. The only thing bad for him is that he can't seem to counter your phase transfer cannon, that could be your ace in the hole if you fight him."

Jr. was listening in with both MOMO and Ziggy out in the hall of the apartment complex. "This doesn't sound good," Ziggy groaned, "if T-elos does fight Ash, he'll never be able to beat her at his current skill level."

"I know," Jr. said, "that ticks me off."

"We've got to warn Ash about this." MOMO said.

They all ran to the apartment where Ash was staying, and knocked on the door calling, "Ash open up, open up, there's something we really need to tell you."

Ash opened the door, "All right, all right, hold on." He looked at his friends and asked, "Why do you guys look so worried?"

"We… ran all the way… here to… warn you… about T-elos." Jr. said nearly out of breath.

"Well come on in before you collapse." Ash said, "Don't do anything I wouldn't, just make yourselves at home. So just have a seat and I'll have Brock make some tea. May and Max are here too."

"Hey guys." May and Max said cheerfully.

"Hi," Brock said coming into the room, "I've got some hot tea if you want any."

Brock placed the cups on the table and sat down. Ash finally got to the point where he could ask his friends why they'd come there in the first place, "By the way, what did you guys want to tell me?"

"T-elos is gonna challenge you to a fight soon." Ziggy replied.

"What?" May gasped.

"Not again." Ash groaned. "I'm still a little bit freaked out from the last time we duked it out."

"I remember that one." MOMO said, "I never would've thought a puppet would do something like that."

"I was talking to Shion earlier today," Max said, "She gave me a copy of T-elos' abilities." He grabbed a folder and opened it, "They're all pretty simple except for the last one on the list. The Phase Transfer Cannon, Shion said this move was the most devastating one T-elos has."

"Yeah," MOMO said, "the Phase Transfer Cannon almost permanently destroyed KOS-MOS when they first fought."

Ash thought about what might happen to him during the fight, _I need to not let anything happen to me that will permanently injure or at the very most get myself killed. I need to see if Shion has any kind of virtual training program so that I can hone my skills. Because if I don't train I'll lose against T-elos and I don't want that to happen._ He looked at Jr. and asked, "Does Shion have any kind of machine that can help me train for my fight against T-elos? If she does I could really use that."

"Actually," Jr. smiled, "I think that I might have just the thing to help you out." He reached into his coat, pulled out a small device, and said, "This is the Kukai Foundation's latest advancement in combat training technology. I call it FightSym for short."

"Wow." Ash and Max gawked.

"So I take it that thing has data of T-elos programmed into all ready?" Max asked.

"If it didn't I wouldn't have pulled it out, now would I?" Jr. asked.

"I guess you've got me there." Max sighed.

"So, Ash," Brock said, "are sure you wanna go through with this?"

"Yeah." May chimed in, "T-elos is a machine."

"And a down right powerful one at that." MOMO added.

"She'll massacre you in a heartbeat and make it look easy." Ziggy said.

"As I would've expected." Ash smirked, "That's why I wanna use Jr.'s training device. If I can train against a copy of T-elos, than I'll be prepared for almost anything that she'll do if we fight each other."

"Yeah," Jr. said cautiously, "but the data on T-elos is incomplete. You'll never be able to train and beat T-elos in person."

Ash looked at Jr. reassuringly, "Why do you think I let T-elos fight my shadow puppet?" He asked with his look of determination a standard thing for him, "I got a chance to look in on her using a technique that only me and Gaara know. The third eye, it's linked directly to the optic nerve allowing the user to see everything, in fact I've seen her use most of her techniques so I know how to beat them."

"But the only one you haven't seen is…" Jr. said.

"The Phase Transfer Cannon." Ziggy said as he finished his tea.

"Yeah," Ash said, "I really wish that I knew what it could do, that way I'd be ready."

"Well," Jr. leapt out of his chair, "you're not gonna see it if you just sit here and worry, let's go start your training."

--

Ash lead them to his favorite training area, where he learned how to summon the power of Omninecros and as usual he was so excited to start training, "Okay, Jr." He howled with excitement, "Show me what you've got in store for me."

Jr. took out the FightSym and prepped it for punishment, "I'll start you off with a basic T-elos," He explained as he typed a code into the machine, "that way you'll be prepared for T-elos physical combat techniques."

"Sounds like it'll be a lot of fun." Ash smirked. He turned his cap around got into his fighting position. His legs were spread out so one foot was facing forward while the other faced out to the side, his left arm was raised, and his right arm was down toward his stomach. He nodded at Jr. who took out a remote and pressed a button that caused the machine to project a holographic image of T-elos. The replica was almost a perfect physical double of the real thing that Ash almost lost his focus. The replica wasted no time; she ran at Ash and delivered a swift punch to his face. Ash staggered to keep his balance but was knocked back by a kick to his chest; _T-elos is pretty tough to beat with out all of her weapons._ He thought, _I'd better lighten up on the excess weight so I can move a little faster._ He called a time out and took off a layer of the weights he was wearing and was ready to continue. This time T-elos charged at Ash ready to drop kick him, but Ash ducked backward, kicked T-elos in the bottom jaw, and sent her flying backward.

MOMO was shocked at how fast her boyfriend could move with in combat, "I've never seen anyone other than KOS-MOS move that fast before." She said, wide eyed with shock. "T-elos may not be able to compete with Ash's speed." She watched as Ash unleashed a rapid barrage of punches on the holographic T-elos and a scratch to her stomach. The scratch did a number on T-elos' circuitry, however she didn't show any signs of giving up, she got up and charged at Ash, with her fists ready, and tried to hit him in between the eyes but she froze for five seconds and gave Ash the opportunity to punch the jewel at the center of her head piece and knocked her off balance. Ash executed a transformation jutsu and changed into Elekid, an electric pokemon whose power varied solely on how much electricity that it absorbed or built up on its own (it really didn't matter), and unleashed Shockwave, a powerful electric type move that did serious amounts of damage to the user's enemy. A powerful wave of electricity passed through the air and hit T-elos causing her to freeze again; this gave Ash the opportunity to transform into Lucario and used Aura Sphere.

T-elos was starting to move when the ball of psychic energy hit the scratch in T-elos' stomach and nearly cut her in half. Jr. took it upon himself to stop the fight by deactivating the machine, "All right," he said, "that's enough. I think we should move on to a more difficult level for you, before the FightSym gets fried."

"Agreed." Ash said telekinetically.

"I'll give T-elos a small portion of her weapons." Jr. said punching in another code sequence, "That should be difficult enough for now."

"I'm lookin' forward to it." Ash smirked. Jr. activated the FightSym and the T-elos appeared again. On the outside she looked the same, but Ash knew that deep inside of her was a power that had the capability if destroying him if he wasn't careful. The replica drew her sword, the L-Blade, and ran at Ash ready to stab him.

But Ash called out the Black Dragon Sword and charged at T-elos ready to blast her ears out with a high-pitched sound wave of a screaming soul, perfect for any Halloween party. When the two swords collided the air was filled with a loud unearthly scream of pain, which caused T-elos to freeze momentarily. Ash took this opportunity to finish her off. He used one of his improved versions of Chidori and thrust it through T-elos' chest plate ending the fight and the training session.


	16. Ultimate Battle: Man Vs Android Pt 2

Ash was wiping sweat off of his forehead after his battle with the replica T-elos, "I hope that T-elos is not that strong in real life." He said, "If she is, I'll die before I unlock the second stage of my curse mark."

"That's why your gonna train you frikkin' butt off until then." Jr. said, "You'll be better prepared for the fight that way."

"I just hope I don't die before then." Ash said.

"You won't," MOMO said, "Shion will be there watching, if you're anywhere in harm's way, she'll restrain T-elos before you're fatally wounded."

"I hope you're right." Ash said.

"You and me both," May said putting her hand on Ash's shoulder, "if I lost you, I don't know how I'd face myself." May and Ash had known each other since May had started her Pokemon journey, so they had a strong bond, not a lover's bond like Ash and MOMO but it was more of a bond that best friends shared. May feared losing Ash like she feared losing her brother, Max, it would break her heart.

"May," Ash said thinking back to the time when May had befriended Manaphy the Pokemon rumored to be the prince of the sea, "you'll stand a better chance of having a bad hair day than losing me."

"I know," Brock agreed, "Ash's is like a Tailow in a battle with a Raichu, he is too stubborn to give up in times of danger."

"I hope you're right." May sighed.

"May," MOMO placed her hand on her friend's shoulder, "could you come with me for a minute?"

May followed her friend out onto the street in front of the apartments, "What did you have to tell me, MOMO?" She asked.

"I just wanted to tell you," MOMO replied, "that if Ash means that much to you, than I'll make sure that nothing happens to him. In return," She looked down, "Could you promise to make sure Ash's safe when you leave the Village?"

"Of course, MOMO," May said, "after all that's what friends are for."

MOMO looked at May and said, "I guess I'm lucky to have a good friend like you."

Jr. looked through one of his pockets and found an old hologram projector, "Hey, Ash," he said holding the projector in his hand, "do you wanna see what T-elos can do with all of her weapons?"

"Sure." Ash replied. Jr. flipped a switch on the projector and it showed a video from the final battle between KOS-MOS and T-elos (See Xenosaga III for the scene). "That is what I have to look forward to?" Ash looked shocked at the footage, "I'm doomed to fail."

"Ash if you want, you could always use me as a sparring partner," Sasuke said as he stepped into the room, "I'm happy to help you. I am your friend after all."

"Hey I'm his friend too, Sasuke," Naruto releasing himself from a Transformation Jutsu he had purposefully turned into a foot stool and hadn't bothered revealing himself until just then. "I saw what T-elos is capable of and I wanna help out as much as I can."

"Leave it to a loser like you to help after you spy on one of your so called friends." Sasuke mocked.

"Shut up Sasuke." Naruto shouted, "Just because I spied on him doesn't mean that Ash will hold a grudge. Right Ash?"

"Uuh, sure thing Naruto," Ash said forcing a smile.

--

Ate the training ground, Naruto and Sasuke began training with Ash to prep him for his fight with the real T-elos. Sasuke and Naruto decided that they would double team Ash in order to ready himself for anything T-elos might try. "All right, Ash, bring it on." Naruto shouted, "We'll be able to get you in as much shape as that gizmo that Jr. has."

"Yeah," Sasuke added, "The thing that humans can do that most machines can't do, is change in the blink of an eye."

"You got that right." Ash said in agreement, "Now, enough talk, bring it on."

Sasuke and Naruto ran at Ash in a helix pattern and nearly hit him with a collision of Chidori and Rasengan, unfortunately Ash transformed into Lucario and used Aura Sphere on Naruto, blasting his sparring partners out of sync giving him plenty of time to jump and transform into Lugia, the great Guardian of the Sea as he was called in the Orange Islands, and performed an attack called Rain Dance, starting a small rain storm, and dove into the lake near the Naruto had landed, about five minutes later, the rain intensified and a beam of light broke the surface of the water and headed straight towards Sasuke who used the Fireball Jutsu to try to snuff out the blast, but the beam froze the flames into thousands of shards, which flew at Sasuke and came deathly close to skewering him into the tree line. _Ash never acted like this when he started training with us weeks ago,_ Sasuke thought, _he must be taking it out on me, thinking I'm T-elos._

Naruto ran towards the water when an orange beam shot at him, he had no choice but to leap out of the way, he managed to catch a glimpse of a large, blue and red, fish with glowing yellow eyes and a mouth filled with large sharp teeth. Ash had transformed into Kyogre as soon as he'd gotten under the water and splash had given him an excellent opportunity to plan his attack, unfortunately he wouldn't have the lake to serve to his needs of surprise attacks. He shot out of the water, roaring at Sasuke and Naruto before he transformed into another gigantic Pokemon of legend, Groudon, a red, armor plated, sharp-toothed monster with menacing claws and spikes going down its massive sides. Naruto and Sasuke watched in awe as a large shining sphere of light ascended into the sky and broke through the clouds, this light sphere caused the sunlight to intensify and the temperature to rise. Naruto had to shield his eyes in order to avoid being blinded by the intense sunlight. Ash took this to his advantage and knocked Naruto into the trees with one sweep his arm. Sasuke used Ash's new speed, which was slower than normal, to unleash a barrage of kunai knifes at him. In order to avoid taking any damage from the knives, Ash literally used his head to take the hits. He had his eyes shut because of the small amount of pain that the blades caused as they impacted him. Sasuke didn't waste any time, he ran under Ash and dealt him a swift kick in the chest; unfortunately he also came close to breaking his foot. _What the heck?_ Sasuke asked his conscience, _His chest is like a rock wall. I'll need to be…_ Before Sasuke could get back on his feet, Ash jumped into the air and landed in the same area and caused an earthquake, the quake shook the ground and caused the landscape to change, slightly. Several trees began to fall and the water shook so hard that it nearly shot into the air.

"Gees, Sasuke," Naruto shouted, "are you trying to get him to kill you?"

"No," Sasuke replied, "I'm trying to get him to think he's fighting T-elos. She's tough, but I feel that Ash is tougher than she is." He turned toward Ash as he used Overheat, a fire type attack that nearly burned Sasuke's hair off, Sasuke had to duck out of the way narrowly missing the searing heat inducing blast of fire. Naruto jumped onto Ash's back and pounded away at Ash's neck, he could only last about five punches until his knuckles began to hurt. Ash tried to shake Naruto off but the blonde idiot held on tightly trying to think of a way to calm Ash down. Ash was getting tired of Naruto; he wanted Naruto to get off of him because he was irritating a spot on neck that itched very badly, but since he'd turned into Groudon's arms only had a limited range of movement, he couldn't reach Naruto to throw him off, so instead he transformed into a black Rayquaza (In the video games a black Rayquaza is also called a shiny Rayquaza) and flew off into the sky swerving around wildly until Naruto let go, but his hang time was cut short when the Ash's tail slammed into him, knocking him out of the air and into the water. To make things funnier, Ash used Thunder on the lake and Naruto came out of the water buzzing with electricity.

"Th-th-that w-w-was unc-c-called for-r-r." Naruto said crawling onto dry land.

"Sheesh," Sasuke gasped, "Ash has a twisted sense of humor." Ash transformed back into Lucario and fell onto the ground and unleashed a barrage of Aura Spheres at Sasuke and Naruto, but Sasuke used Phoenix Flower Jutsu and unleashed a barrage of fireballs on Ash, whose amazing agility allowed him to dodge most of the fireballs, except for the Fireball Jutsu that Sasuke had thrown in to keep Ash on his toes. When the massive fireball hit Ash he was plowed into a tree, side first. Sasuke never saw what happened next; two Lucarios jumped from the tree line and began sending out thousands of Aura Spheres at the two shinobi. Sasuke tried to play the hero and launched a Dragon Flame Jutsu on the clone but before he could finish calling out his attack, a third clone appeared out of the foliage in the form of a Moltres, a legendary firebird pokemon whom Ash had only encountered once, and unleashed a swirling inferno on Naruto. Sasuke blasted a fireball at the spiraling fire stream but he left himself open to the clone disguised as Lucario, who used the Transformation Jutsu to become Deoxys and used Nightshade on Sasuke. Naruto performed Rasengan and broke through the blast of dark energy only to be hit a Mach Punch from the real Ash.

"How did I not see that coming?" Naruto asked as he flew into the lake. Ash jumped in after Naruto, who jumped out screaming, because Ash had transformed into Kyogre again and was trying to freeze Naruto with an Ice Beam. What happened next would shock Sasuke and Naruto forever.


End file.
